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* 


OTHER BOOKS BY ETHEL HUESTON 

Prudence of the Parsonage 
Prudence Says So 
Sunny Slopes 
Leave it to Doris 
Eve to the Rescue 
Little Lady Comb 




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He shaved ten years from his appearance 







Merry O 


By 


ETHEL HUESTON 

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Illustrated by 
Edward C. Caswell 


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INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


Copyright, 1923 

By The Bobbs-Merrill Company 



Printed in the United States of America 


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PRESS OF 

BRAUNWORTH ft CO. 
BOOK MANUFACTURERS 
BROOKLYN, N. Y. 


APR -4 *23 

©Cl A704043 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I A Case of Coercion.11 

II Commonly Known as Common Sense . . 32 

III A Door that Opened and Closed .... 48 

IV A Reward of Virtue.70 

V Whom the Gods Love.86 

VI Rendering Unto Cesar .97 

VII Divinely Driven.. . . . . 115 

VIII Introducing Karma.137 

IX Healing Hash.150 

X Science and Health .162 

XI Malpractise .t . . . . . 179 

XII Terrors by Night.195 

XIII Boosting Karma .207 

XIV When Greek Meets Greek.216 

XV Neither Dead nor Sleeping.228 

XVI A Proposal, En Rapport.246 

XVII Another Opening Door .260 

XVIII A Prisoner of Fate.271 

XIX The Secret of the Stone Cache .... 285 

XX When Spirits Walk .296 

. XXI If You Will Be Orthodox.310 






















Merry O 


Merry O 

CHAPTER I 

A CASE OF COERCION 

HJ ISTEN, father!” 

The Reverend Mr. McAllister was a 
light sleeper at all times, but it would seem that 
slumber deep as of the grave itself must yield to 
the force of that insistent, lilting voice,—and if 
not to the voice, certainly then to the resounding 
spring of the bed as, with a flying leap, the lithe 
young figure landed full in the center of it, or to 
the stirring vigor of that pair of strong white 
arms. Mary Martha McAllister in action was 
not to be denied. 

“Listen, father!” 

With a low, protesting, yet submissive mur¬ 
mur, her father turned over in bed, and opened 
his eyes. He was sleepy, he did not want to be 
disturbed, yet he could but smile at that picture. 

11 


MERRY O 


It was in the very early morning, all drab and 
somber, before the faintest hint of rose swept up 
the eastern sky. And against the drab and som¬ 
ber gray, Mary Martha was a riot of gay color, 
with her golden tousled curls, her glowing deep- 
blue eyes, her face all flushed from sleep and 
from her glad excitement. Clutching a nonde¬ 
script flannel kimono at her throat, she crouched 
on her knees in the center of her father’s bed, 
excitedly wriggling her bare pink toes protruding 
from the faded blue of her kimono. 

“Listen, father!” Her voice was low but vi¬ 
brant with emotion. Mary Martha was always 
vibrant with emotion of one sort or another;-*- 
whether pleasure, pain, a high resolve, a driving 
hurry, or only girlish merriment—whatever it 
was. Mary Martha was vibrant with it at the time 
of its possession of her. “If you were a hen,” she 
said slowly, with impressive dignity, “if you were 
a hen, and sat yourself down comfortably in a 
box with a dozen eggs in the nest, in a nice warm 
corner of the hen-house, and somebody came 

12 


A CASE OF COERCION 


along and shooed you off the nest and stole all 
the eggs, and carried the box away and hid it, 
and then came back with a broom and drove you 
out of the hen-house and locked the door and 
barred the windows,—now, father, what would 
you think ?” 

Her father was accustomed to Mary Martha’s 
line of conversation. He laughed and answered 
promptly, “I should infer that somebody wanted 
me to get away from that hen-house and stay 
away.” 

She nodded with satisfaction. “That’s right! 
You said it the first time! Anybody would! And 
it is just the same with us. This is the only 
house in New Paris that isn’t occupied,—by any¬ 
body but us, I mean. And now they come and 
say they’ve got to have it. That turns us out. 
And then, to make it even stronger, they come 
and say they’ve got to have my position, and 
you know yourself it’s the only position in town. 
So there you are. They took our eggs, took our 
nest, and now they’re shooing us out of the hen- 

13 


MERRY O 


house forever. Of course, I’m talking in par¬ 
ables, but you know what I mean. The hen¬ 
house is New Paris. ,, 

“But, Merry O—” 

She interrupted quickly. “It seems to me, 
father, as if the Lord must want us to get away 
from this town. Don’t you think so? I’ve got 
to have work, and there’s no work here. We’ve 
got to have a house, and no house here! Well, 
then, doesn’t it just look as if the Lord decided 
we’d better move ?” 

Her father hesitated. This was a powerful 
argument, as Mary Martha had foreseen, and 
one he found difficult to answer. 

“Of course, if it is indeed—” he began hesi¬ 
tantly. 

Mary Martha bounced quickly off the bed, 
kissed him hastily and patted his head. “Yes, 
that’s what I say. All right, then, we’ve agreed 
on that much, haven’t we? We’ll move; as 
soon as we possibly can. I think we can be ready 
to go by the time school is out.” 

14 


A CASE OF COERCION 


She walked toward the door, an appealing if 
somewhat ludicrous figure with her triumphant 
air, her tumbled curls and bare feet, wrapped in 
the bunglesome flannel kimono. Her hand on the 
knob, she turned for a moment, her manner that 
of a conqueror. 

“I did it by New Thought, father. It’s very 
simple. When you go to bed at night you say, 
‘Well, here I am in a nice predicament, but Divine 
Love will show me the way out in the morning/ 
Then you go to sleep. And it did. Only it 
worked faster than I expected and got me up 
before daylight.” 

“You might have waited till breakfast,” he 
said plaintively. 

“No, that’s against the rule. As soon as you 
get the hunch, I mean, the inspiration, you have 
to hop to it right away. Oh, I don’t mean the 
slang. I mean, you must embody the inspiration 
in your plan of action right straight away. That’s 
the rule. It’s very clever. Good night.” 

Mary Martha’s conclusion in regard to a move 

15 


MERRY O 


seemed indeed based on sound logic. In the 
little town of New Paris, in southeastern Iowa, 
houses were not built to rent. It was a commun¬ 
ity in which each man owned his home, and 
there was scant provision of any kind for tran¬ 
sients. 

Indeed, there were no transients, with the ex¬ 
ception of teachers and preachers. The minister 
was furnished a parsonage. The teachers lived 
at a boarding-house. 

They had come to New Paris, the family of 
McAllisters, ten years before, when Mary Martha 
was a boyish, breezy child of ten, and Theodora 
a baby in arms. They were sent there by decree 
of the Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church in southeastern Iowa, and took up their 
residence in the parsonage provided for them, 
happily, comfortably, orthodoxly. Three years 
later, Mr. McAllister, never a man of rugged 
health, had suffered a complete nervous break¬ 
down, and, unable to recuperate his feeble forces, 
was obliged to give up his little church and suffer 

16 


A CASE OF COERCION 


himself to be recorded on the lists of the church 
as “superannuated.” 

Afterward, Mary Martha often said, regret¬ 
fully, that if she had only known as much at the 
time of the disaster as she knew in later years, 
she could readily have whipped her father into 
his old preaching form along the practical healing 
lines of Auto-Suggestion, Christian Science, 
Mental Healing, New Thought, or just plain 
Theotherapy if you wanted to be strictly ortho¬ 
dox. 

But unfortunately, at that time, Mary Martha 
was patiently resigned, along with the rest of the 
family, to a placid acceptance of illness as not 
only unavoidable but perhaps a positive disposi¬ 
tion of divine providence. 

At any rate, they found themselves without a 
church, and, what was really more disastrous, 
without a parsonage. But Benjamin Hargood, a 
kindly intentioned member, put into some sem¬ 
blance of repair a little cottage of his at the edge 
of town, a cottage he had long since discarded 

17 


MERRY O 


as unfit for human occupancy, and placed it at 
the disposal of the unfortunate minister and his 
family. Regardless of its condition, they were 
glad to get it, and soon had a comfortable little 
home established there. 

For a time, things went nicely enough. The 
children continued in the public schools of New 
Paris, and Mr. McAllister went happily on his 
way, working almost as hard in the church as he 
had done before, with the one great difference 
that now he did it without remuneration, from 
habit and from love, whereas before there had 
been a salary, though a meager one. It was upon 
Mrs. McAllister, as always upon the wife of a 
minister, that the burden of the new regime 
fell hardest,—the training of the children, the 
care of baby Theodora, and the maintenance of 
a home and a family in a way that measured up 
to the traditions of ministerial life on funds 
wholly insufficient. Even her sublime heroism 
was unequal to the performance, and after a 
sudden, very brief, very quiet illness, Mrs. Mc- 

18 


A CASE OF COERCION 


Allister closed her wearied eyes and abandoned 
the impossible.* 

After that, things went steadily down-hill. The 
small savings dwindled with astonishing rapidity 
in spite of rigid economy, and the allowance re¬ 
ceived from the Board was in no way commen¬ 
surate with the family needs. Fortunately, Mary 
Martha was just finishing high school at the time. 
She did not go on and take the normal course to 
prepare for teaching as she had intended, but in¬ 
stead went courageously into the “Dry Goods 
Emporium” of John G. Barnes, as his sole clerk 
and general assistant. Her modest wage was a 
great help, and outside her hours in the Em¬ 
porium, Mary Martha managed, after a fashion, 
to run the house. 

In recent years she was assisted in an amiable 
but somewhat unreliable fashion by her sister 
Vivien, fifteen years old, now a sophomore in high 
school. At this time, Theodora was a sober, 
conscientious child of ten, most precocious, Mary 
Martha devoutly believed, for already she was a 

19 


MERRY O 


more dependable assistant than the flightier 
Vivien. 

Mary Martha had been thus christened by her 
doting parents in a fond hope that in her would 
develop a sweet commingling of the commend¬ 
able virtues of both the sainted sisters of the 
Bible. And in their desire to forward this pos¬ 
sibility to the limit of their abilities, they persisted 
in the daily use of both names during her baby 
years. Mary Martha was nearly seven when 
little Vivien burst into coherent speech, and the 
first word on her rosy lips was a demand for the 
presence of her sister,—an imperative repetition 
that would not be silenced until that sister 
came. 

“Merry O! Merry O! Merry O!” ordered 
the tyrant baby. And the name was so applicable 
to Mary Martha, so alluring in sound, so easily 
spoken, that from thence forth, Mary Martha 
was cheerily known as Merry O! 

“Twenty, fifteen and ten,” Mary Martha said 
sometimes, with something like good-natured de- 

20 


A CASE OF COERCION 


rision. “It’s a ridiculous way to raise a family, 
father! Of course, not blaming you at all, for 
I suppose you did as well as you could, but on 
general principles, it’s no way to build up an 
establishment. And you didn’t get started soon 
enough, either, if you ask me. There ought to 
be a time limit to such things. Why, you never 
really thought of handing down a posterity, until 
it was time for you to turn your thoughts to 
solemn things.” 

Although her father laughed at this, as he 
usually laughed at Mary Martha’s opinions, he 
really felt in his heart the criticism was just 
enough, for he was nearly fifty when Mary 
Martha arrived in the parsonage home, and now, 
at a time when the three girls needed so much 
of material care and fathering, he was frail and 
feeble, well on his way toward seventy, “super¬ 
annuated” from active service. 

The crisis which precipitated Mary Martha’s 
morning mission and disturbed her father’s sleep 
came, fortunately, in the early springtime. The 

21 


MERRY O 


son of Benjamin Hargood, who had kindly 
proffered the ramshackle cottage, was on the 
verge of marriage, and his father planned to re¬ 
build the little house at the edge of town to make 
a home for the son and his bride. This was ob¬ 
viously no more than reasonable, although it left 
the McAllisters shelterless. 

The additional blow to their domestic serenity 
came quickly on the heels of the first. As Mary 
Martha sat browsing in the Book Department of 
the Dry Goods Emporium, which was her espe¬ 
cial delight and charge, her employer ventured 
almost timidly to address her on a serious sub¬ 
ject. 

“You know. Merry O, my girl Helen gets 
through at high school next week,” he said ten¬ 
tatively. 

Mary Martha knew this only too well. She 
had foreseen the catastrophe from the moment of 
her employment, three years previous. 

“And I ain’t really got work enough for two 
clerks,” he went on apologetically. “Not but what 

22 


A CASE OF COERCION 


you’re a fine help, and I hate to see you go, you 
understand.” 

There was not another position available in 
New Paris. It seemed that every one in the little 
village who had an opening for a “bright girl” 
had either a daughter, a niece, or a cousin by 
marriage, to fill that opening. Mary Martha was 
inclined to think it was one of the laws of New 
Paris that no man should have any kind of work 
for a girl, unless he had a girl of exactly the nec¬ 
essary requirements in his family proper. 

The only thing left for Mary Martha was an 
occasional bit of nursing or housework attendant 
upon the visits of the community stork,—a hard 
as well as an uncertain livelihood on which to 
depend for food for four. 

It was in this emergency, as Mary Martha 
proudly boasted, that she resorted to the principles 
of New Thought as she understood them. Mary 
Martha was not much of a student, merely an 
indiscriminate devourer of things literary. It 
had been at her especial and fervent plea that 

23 


MERRY O 


J. G. Barnes installed two scant shelves of books 
in a corner of his Emporium. Mary Martha her¬ 
self had selected the books, selected them most 
painstakingly with the help of many publishers’ 
advertisements and catalogues, to say nothing of 
three enthusiastic traveling salesmen who “carried 
books.” In the end, it was a small but varied 
selection, including half a dozen of the latest and 
most widely puffed books of fiction, two or three 
volumes of standard poetry, including India's 
Love Lyrics, which Mary Martha afterward in¬ 
sisted was a mistake and kept carefully out of 
sight on the back of the shelf; Science and 
Health, which she thought was a doctor book 
when she ordered it; two volumes on the latest 
methods of practical Auto-Suggestion; The Key 
to Theosophy; Trowurd’s Edinburgh Lectures on 
Mental Science; three books on different phases 
of New Thought, as applied to physical healing, 
success in business and happiness in general; also 
First Studies in Psycho-Analysis, and Faith, the 
Greatest Power in the World, by McComb. 

24 


A CASE OF COERCION 


This comprised Mary Martha’s Book Depart¬ 
ment of the Dry Goods Emporium, and in it she 
reveled. She read each volume again and again, 
and yet again. And when, as happened rarely, a 
customer came for books, Mary Martha took it 
grievously to heart, and selfishly, as she admitted, 
assisted her customer to the purchase of the book 
for which she herself cared least. Hence, the 
end of the Book Department was the self-culture, 
the personal erudition, of Mary Martha Mc¬ 
Allister. For Mary Martha knew every beloved 
volume by heart. 

J. G. Barnes regarded the Department with 
contempt born of Emporium practicality. “This 
town don’t take much to books, outside the free 
library,” he said, and Mary Martha felt the im¬ 
plied criticism of her judgment. 

“What’ll you take for the whole Department?” 
she demanded, a suddenness of notion which she 
would certainly have attributed to New Thought 
had she been working for a demonstration at the 
time. 


25 


MERRY O 


J. G. Barnes laughed. 

“You’ll turn out to be one of these Here authors 
if you don’t watch out,” he said. “Two dollars 
takes the lot.” 

“Deduct it from my salary,” she said grandly, 
and in that moment Mary Martha made a great 
decision. The family of McAllister leaving New 
Paris for—somewhere—should be a Traveling 
Book Department. 

Since it was in the spring that young Hargood 
married and Vivien was graduated, the entire 
summer lay before the McAllisters for their ven¬ 
ture. Vivien and Theodora were wild with child¬ 
ish eagerness, Mary Martha breathlessly alert 
with dreams and plans. It was their father who 
felt the pain of parting. In another town, he 
knew he would be only “old Mr. McAllister, 
superannuated.” In New Paris, ranking next to 
the active shepherd of the flock, he was still the 
spiritual leader. The going out would cut him 
off at once from all participation in the things he 

26 


A CASE OF COERCION 


loved most in these quiet declining years. Rut 
he did not hesitate. 

“Seems as if the Lord just decided we had to 
move,” Mary Martha had said, and that settled 
it; he never tried to resist the irresistibility of 
that declaration. 

Perhaps the most surprising revelation of all 
these surprising days came when Mary Martha 
rushed in from work one night and flung herself 
into a chair with the terse announcement: 

“Well, I bought an automobile.” 

Like most of life’s climactic moments, Mary 
Martha’s was met in silence. 

She looked about, almost defiantly, at the 
awed and rigid group. “Why not?” she de¬ 
manded. “Train fare is too expensive when you 
multiply it by four—since Teddy got so big no- 
body’d ever believe she was under ten, even if 
father would keep still long enought to— Well, 
anyhow, we can’t walk, can we? We might get 
a rickety horse and a rackety wagon, but that’s 
not stylish. And if we’ve got to do anything, I 

27 


MERRY O 


say do it right. As father says, we’ve got to the 
end of New Paris and have to move! But we 
can’t move on foot.” 

“Did I say that?” asked her father modestly. 

“Where is it?” demanded Teddy, who, at 
normal, was always practical, and after the first 
staggering shock of revelation quickly reverted 
to type. 

“It’s down the road in front of Wrays’. We’ll 
have to go down there after supper and push it 
home.” 

“Push it!” 

“I thought it—” 

“Well, so it is. But in the first place, I haven’t 
learned to drive it, and in the second place there’s 
no gas in it, and in the third place—it’s smashed 
—a little bit. It belonged to Billy Graves and 
he ran into a truck—and he said ‘There she lies, 
take it for a hundred.’ You can always get a 
hundred for a Ford, even if there’s nothing left 
but the name on the radiator. Everybody knows 
that. So I said, ‘Done.’ ” 


28 


A CASE OF COERCION 


“Where’d you get a hundred dollars ?” de¬ 
manded Teddy, holding her role as interrogator, 
while the others continued electrified but speech¬ 
less. 

“I haven’t got it. I told Billy to come down 
after supper and we’d give him a hundred dollars’ 
worth of whatever we’ve got that he’ll have. 
Goodness knows we can’t move all this pile of 
stuff along with us, everywhere we go. Now 
there must be two dozen hens left, I should say. 
Teddy, you hurry up and finish your supper and 
go out and see how many you can catch. He’s a 
farmer, he’ll love hens. And the two pigs Smith 
gave us—” 

“Those are good pigs, Mary Martha,” pro¬ 
tested her father suddenly. “They’re—” 

“That’s what I told him. Now, father, be rea¬ 
sonable. You don’t expect to carry those two 
pigs along in our Traveling Book Department, 
do you ? And the piano—Vivien, you hurry and 
polish it up a little. As I told him, it’s not new, 
but it’ll play all right. And for goodness’ sake, 

29 


MERRY O 


father, don’t mention that we only paid fifty 
dollars for it when we bought it at the auction. 
Pianos are higher since the war. Maybe you’d 
better go up-town somewhere, and let me do the 
selling. I think the hens and pigs and the piano 
ought to make it.” 

When Teddy had corralled as many of the hens 
as she could locate, and Vivien had obediently 
polished the piano, the united McAllisters walked 
briskly down the road toward Wrays’, to convey 
home their new possession. At first sight, it was 
not prepossessing. Mary Martha’s statement that 
it was “smashed—a little bit,” did not begin to 
do justice to its condition. 

Vivien turned a haughty nose in the air and an¬ 
nounced that she’d rather travel on foot. The 
Reverend Mr. McAllister shook it from side to 
side, listened intently to the varied assortment of 
noises produced by every touch, tried the springs 
a time or two, and then looked doubtfully at Mary 
Martha. 

“Maybe the blacksmith can wire it together,” 

30 


A CASE OF COERCION 


he said dubiously. “I can’t risk a fall, at my 
age, you know.” 

But Teddy accepted it with the joyous hope¬ 
fulness of youth. “We don’t care, do we. Merry 
O?” she cried. “I bet it’ll go all the faster ’cause 
it’s hung together kind of loose!” 


CHAPTER II 


COMMONLY KNOWN AS COMMON SENSE 

M ARY MARTHA’S newly acquired motor 
stood dejectedly in the ditch at the side of 
the road and refused to budge. A leaking radia¬ 
tor, two flat tires, a smashed fender, a broken 
windshield, a door hanging loose on one weak 
hinge, detracted nothing from its spartan resolu¬ 
tion to adhere to that one spot on the highway. 
The united efforts of Mary Martha, her father, 
Teddy and three small boys, failed to affect that 
high resolve, and the wheels but settled them¬ 
selves more solidly at every attempt to dislodge 
them. Vivien scornfully declined to lend a hand 
in any such silly business, but took up a superior 
position some feet away beside the fence, where 
she tried to see all that was going on as a rank 
outsider, not even remotely recognizing the rest 
of the party. 


32 


COMMON SENSE 


“You can—do anything—if you do it—hard 
enough,” panted Mary Martha, throwing every 
ounce of her strength into the unequal contest, 
both feet planted squarely in the rich black Iowa 
mud. “A Ford’s—not so much—to move! Push, 
boys, push!” 

Her allies rallied to another effort, but all in 
vain. The car did not so much as tremble in its 
tracks. 

Then another Ford, complacent in new and 
shining pride, rolled quickly alongside and 
stopped. 

“It’s true then,” called a bitter voice from be¬ 
hind the wheel of the new arrival. “Like a fool, 
I refused to believe it. But knowing you, Merry 
O, \ should have known right off that the bigger 
fool nonsense it looked like, the bigger chance 
there was of its being so!” 

Mary Martha dejectedly shoved the damp curls 
from her forehead, and tried to glower the peev¬ 
ish newcomer into silence, but he would not be 
abashed. 


33 


MERRY O 


“I wouldn’t believe it,” he went on doggedly. 
“I said, ‘No, her father may be a fool, but not 
that big a fool.’ I said, ‘Those girls may be out 
of their heads, but not that far out.’ I said—” 

“I don’t care what you said!” cried Mary 
Martha at last, goaded into fury by the combina¬ 
tion of her failure and his scorn. “Whatever 
you said, you can say it to yourself, or with 
flowers. Don’t speak to me!” 

Then he laughed, and swung out over the side 
of his car to consider the depths of the dilemma 
into which Mary Martha had wilfully thrown 
herself. 

Mary Martha relented in a moment. 

“Oh, Jeremy,” she pleaded. “How on earth 
do you make a Ford go when it won’t go ?” 

Jeremy Lanton said nothing until he had thor¬ 
oughly inspected the car. Then he whistled. 
Then he was ready to express his opinion. 

“You may get a lot of good out of all that 
slush you’re always reading,” he said loftily, “but 
there’s such a thing as Common Sense, too, 

34 


COMMON SENSE 


Merry O, and now and again folks do pretty well 
to use it.” 

“I know all about it,” put in Mary Martha. 
“It’s the same thing as Mental Science. You 
read Troward’s Lecture about it, and you will 
see.” 

“Common sense is common sense. That’s all 
the name it’s got and all it needs,” he insisted 
grimly. 

Mary Martha dug a resentful toe in the ground 
and said nothing. She knew very well that 
Jeremy Lanton would quickly start that car for 
her, if she but held her peace and looked miser¬ 
able, which required no great effort, either. 

“Common sense's not one of those pretty affairs 
that gets itself put into books, like some other 
things I could mention, but it's an awful handy 
thing in a pinch, Merry O.” 

Merry O swallowed even this thrust in humbled 
silence. 

“There’s two ways to push a Ford,” Jeremy 
went on in a pleasanter tone now that she was 

35 


MERRY O 


sufficiently crushed. “One is to let off the brake, 
and the other is to leave it out of gear in the first 
place, and you didn’t do either one.” 

Vivien, from the walk beside the fence broke 
into mocking laughter, and even the small boys 
hooted derisively at Mary Martha’s discomfiture, 
as Jeremy released the brakes. Then he took a 
stout rope from his own tool box, and towed her 
purchase home without another word, while the 
McAllisters trudged somberly behind. 

“You see it’s a good enough car all right,” 
Mary Martha said defensively. “I knew it 
all the time. The brakes and the gears work 
fine!” 

When they reached the house, Jeremy drew 
Mary Martha persuasively around behind the car. 
“Merry O,” he began, “you’re just running your¬ 
self head-first into all kinds of grief. This is an 
awful silly thing you’re planning on. You can’t 
go off alone in a bum flivver with that old man 
and those two kids! Why don’t you just stay 
at home and be sensible, and marry me as I asked 

36 


COMMON SENSE 


you, and we’ll build them a house right on the 
farm with us so you can run both houses, and— 
Go on, Merry O! I feel—I want—I can’t stand 
to let you go off like this!” 

“Oh, Jeremy,” she answered gently, warm fin¬ 
gers clasping his arm, “if it was only myself, 
honestly, I don’t know but I would marry you 
that way, just to get myself off my own hands 
and on to somebody else’s. But I can’t. Why, 
I’ve got to put Vivien in shape to marry a rich 
man, for goodness knows she can’t do a thing 
in the world but look pretty. And I have to get 
Teddy steamed up to do something very smart 
and clever when she is old enough,—and you 
know father!” 

“But how about me, Merry O ? And how about 
you?” 

“Oh, Jeremy, you’re awfully good. You’ll not 
forget me, I know, but you’ll like other girls when 
I am gone. You’ve got to be happy in the end, 
you know, because you’re the happy kind. And 
me ?” Mary Martha laughed a little, contentedly. 

37 


MERRY O 


‘Til be all right. You see, Jeremy, you’ve got to 
have time to want things, and to miss things, and 
to fall in love, and for all the other wonderful 
luxury things like that, and I’ve never had a 
minute to spare!” 

What could Jeremy do? 

He assisted, as he was well fitted to do, 
in their mad preparations for taking to the 
road. 

And Mary Martha rejoiced in his help, partly 
because everything he did was well done, partly 
because it was a great item in cutting down the 
expense of getting ready. In the week that fol¬ 
lowed, with the usual neighborly interest of the 
small-town folk, every man in New Paris who 
knew anything about a car, lent a dexterous hand 
in the reconstruction of Mary Martha’s. Many 
who had never touched finger to a motor before, 
saw in this a rare opportunity to acquire experi¬ 
mental knowledge, but Jeremy Lanton kept a 
strict eye on the final product and saw to it that 
no friendly but ill-prompted zeal had a chance 

38 


COMMON SENSE 


to wreak further havoc on the already shattered 
Ford. 

It was Jeremy who suggested a camping-bed in 
the car, and then carried out his own suggestion 
by cutting down the back of the front seat and 
putting it on hinges, so that at night it could be 
dropped in conjunction with the back seat to 
form a good and cozy bed for the girls. And he 
resurrected from some place on the farm a heavy 
camping hammock for Mr. McAllister to use in¬ 
stead of a cot, it being lighter to carry and better 
in service. In a hundred ways he helped them to 
cut down the load, explaining again and again 
that in a motor trip, and especially a motor trip 
in “an old heap of junk like theirs , 1 ” they must 
travel light, if they would travel far. He made 
a dust-proof box for the running board in which 
to carry their supply of food, and the kerosene 
stove. And as a final offering—in deference 
to Vivien’s wounded pride—he painted the car 
afresh. 

“Of course, I suppose I could work out all 

39 


MERRY O 


these sensible ideas myself by going into the si¬ 
lence and concentrating,” Mary Martha said, and 
added gratefully: “But it does save lots of time 
for you just to think them up offhand that way, 
without effort, and then go right ahead and do 
them as fast as you can get them in mind. I wish 
you were going along, Jeremy. With my Divine 
Love and your Common Sense, we’d be rich in 
no time.” 

Mr. McAllister, professing himself hardly 
qualified at his age to sell India's Love Lyrics, or 
to discuss with customers the philosophical in¬ 
tricacies of Psycho-Analysis and Mental Science, 
made hasty arrangements to take orders for 
Bibles and to distribute various religious tracts 
of his own choosing; while Vivien, who frankly 
confessed she had no notion of bothering with 
any kind of books for anybody, but spurred to un¬ 
wonted effort by the zealous enthusiasm of the 
entire household, acquired an assortment of 
beauty preparations and toilet waters, for which 
she was confident she would find a ready market, 

40 


COMMON SENSE 


recommended as they would be by her own lux¬ 
uriant dark hair, her creamy skin, her brilliant 
shining eyes. 

As only the barest necessities of camping could 
be carried in the car, they sold most of their 
household goods, receiving in return a sum so 
slight as to make of the transaction almost a 
charity. Yet considering that everything had 
been in constant service for thirty years and 
more, the girls could not be blamed for the feel¬ 
ing that they were lucky to get rid of it on any 
terms at all. The things they wished to keep 
were neatly packed away in boxes, and stored in 
the basement of the church until they should send 
for them later on. 

Mary Martha, with Jeremy as tutor, had no 
difficulty in learning to drive the car and change 
tires, and soon professed herself quite an artist 

A 

in her ability to “turn and tighten things and 
punch with the wrench and pound with the ham¬ 
mer when she goes dead.” 

So their plans went on apace, and because, 

41 


MERRY O 


*—without understanding that back of that un¬ 
yielding law lay all the mysteries of life and death 
and the eternal beyond,—from their early youth 
they had known there was an infinite source of 
supply which could not fail the one who tapped 
that spring in faith, they were only hopeful, and 
not at all afraid of what might lie ahead. 

“The trouble with us,” said Mary Martha, 
looking up from her book one afternoon, “the 
trouble with us is that we have never expected 
enough! We’ve been satisfied with too little. 
There’s been a good deal coming to us we didn’t 
get, just because we didn’t know it was ours and 
take it. Now from this on, we’ve all got to get 
together and expect. Expect the very best of 
everything in the world! And then of course 
we’ll get it.” 

On the last night before their departure, just 
before they were ready to sleep, Mary Martha 
gathered her little flock about her and fixed them 
with a purposeful eye. 

“Listen,” she began. “We’ve got to have a 

42 


COMMON SENSE 


plan. That’s the first rule. All the books say 
so. Now for myself, my plan for the present 
is just to sort of—well, scurry along and get a 
job of some sort as quickly as possible, and see 
what comes of it. Now, Vivien, what is your 
plan?—I don’t mean selling the beauty things,— 
I mean, your great general plan for life.” 

Vivien, thus set upon, flushed and giggled and 
finally admitted that so far she had been satis¬ 
fied to get along as best she could, and had really 
no definite line of action mapped out for herself. 

Mary Martha was willing to assist. “As I’ve 
often told you, Vivien, you’re obviously fitted for 
nothing on earth but a rich husband, so you’d bet¬ 
ter make up your mind to that.” Then, quickly 
forestalling paternal objections, she went on, “Oh, 
of course, father, she’ll have to fall in love with 
him, but there are plenty of rich young men that 
any girl could fall in love with if she had a 
chance. You see, Vivien, a rich husband is satis¬ 
fied if he has a pretty wife with a good disposi¬ 
tion. That’s what you are, and that’s all you 

43 


MERRY O 


are. Now, you must take a string and tie twenty 
knots in it, and every night just before you go 
to sleep you must say, Tve got a rich husband,’ 
‘I’ve got a rich husband.’ ” 

Vivien laughed, still flushing with confusion. 
“What’s the string for ? To hang on to him, once 
I get him?” 

“Oh, no. It’s Auto-Suggestion. The string 
with the twenty knots is to count by, so you won’t 
have to get your mind off the general idea trying 
to keep track. You’re supposed to say it twenty 
times, night and morning. It works like this. 
You must picture an image until it becomes a 
reality. It’s the rule. Tve got a rich husband.’ 
Don’t forget.” 

“I won’t do it,” declared Vivien. “It’s a lie 
in the first place, and I’d look pretty wouldn’t I, 
sitting up in bed saying Tve got a rich husband’ 
twenty times, when everybody knows I haven’t.” 

“You haven’t now, but if you keep saying it, it 
will impress itself on your Unconscious, and then 
your Unconscious will make it come true. It’s 

44 


COMMON SENSE 


all down in the book, and it’s very clever. I’ll let 
you read the book if you like.’’ 

‘Til read what it says about getting a rich 
husband, but I won’t say it on a string until I 
get him. You begin at the wrong end, Merry O. 
The Unconscious ought to get him first, and then 
I’ll say it.” 

To avoid an argument, Mary Martha turned 
quickly to Teddy. “Now, Teddy, you’re smart, 
and it’s a good thing, for you’re certainly no 
beauty. I’ll fix a string for you, and you must 
say, T am a genius, I am success, I am power,’ 
over and over, and that’ll set your Unconscious 
to working and first thing you know you will be.” 

“My what?” 

“Your Unconscious. Why didn’t you pay at¬ 
tention when I was telling Vivien? It’s Auto- 
Suggestion. Your Conscious tells your Uncon¬ 
scious, and if your Unconscious believes it, it 
goes to work and makes it come true.” 

“Why should my Unconscious believe it, when 
the rest of me knows it’s not true at all?” 

45 


MERRY O 


“You mustn’t argue,” said Mary Martha con¬ 
fusedly, wondering why those ideas which seemed 
so beautiful, so rational, so very inspirational as 
she read them in the books, became suddenly 
so ridiculous when couched in the girlish phras¬ 
ing of her materialistic sisters. “Now we must 
all be very, very sure that this is right, that God 
wants us to go, that only good and happiness can 
come of it to every one of us,—and it will.” 

“Will our Unconscious make it?” asked 
Teddy. 

“No, this is New Thought. Our desire, which 
is really prayer, sets up vibrations which attract 
the things we desire from the Infinite Source of 
Supply and —” 

“Mercy, Merry O, begin again, I lost you.” 

“Well then, just remember that 'Divine Love 
always has met and always will meet every hu¬ 
man need.’ ” 

“Does the Unconscious—” 

“No, that’s Christian Science.—Well, never 
mind, then. Just say the Lord’s Prayer and go 

46 


COMMON SENSE 


to sleep. I am going to affirm a while before 
I go to bed.” 

So Mary Martha, a slender slip of a girl to 
be cast in so heroic a mold, sat in the window, 
staring out into the soft black stillness of the 
summer night, trying courageously to affirm for 
herself and her father and sisters, health, suc¬ 
cess and happiness, as she had learned it in the 
books. Breathlessly quiet was the night, and 
Mary Martha, gazing out, never knew when she 
drifted from “conscious affirmations” to the 
sweet romantic dreams that every girl is heir to. 


CHAPTER III 


A DOOR THAT OPENED AND CLOSED 

V ERY early in the morning of a serene and 
cloudless day late in June, Mary Martha 
triumphantly, breathlessly, with something al¬ 
most like desperation in her enthusiasm, hurried 
her family into the well-packed Ford and set out 
to search for the end of the rainbow. Only Mr. 
McAllister felt anything of sadness at leaving 
the old home behind. The three girls were bub¬ 
bling over with excitement. Ahead of them lay 
adventure, romance, mystery, joy. Behind them 
—just New Paris! But Mr. McAllister no 
longer thrilled at the prospect of romance. For 
him, happiness lay in the pleasant routine of 
habit, the daily mingling with old friends, the 
coming and going in accustomed places. So it 
was with something of a sigh that he settled down 
in the front seat beside Mary Martha, and 

48 


A DOOR THAT OPENED 

watched the passing of the old familiar land¬ 
marks, one after another, until all was strange 
and new. 

Vivien flippantly tossed a kiss behind her. 
“There goes Bing Gaswell’s farm,” she cried. 
“That’s the farthest we’ve been on this road, so 
good luck to it! It’s the end of New Paris for 
the McAllisters. I suppose I can look for that 
rich husband any minute now, Merry O ?” 

“And I’m just eaten alive with genius,” 
burbled Teddy. “I feel like writing poems and 
painting pictures, and inventing air-ships to carry 
us away all the faster. What other kinds of 
genius am I likely to catch, Merry O ?” 

Mary Martha laughed good naturedly at their 
banter. “I thought myself something would have 
happened long before this,” she confessed gaily. 
“Here we’ve been on the road two hours and 
we haven’t had a sign of an adventure.” 

But a faith like hers was not to be disappointed. 
Something happened, even as she said the words, 
something neither more serious nor less madden- 

49 


MERRY O 


ing than a blow-out. Merry O stopped the car 
with a terrific clatter, adroitly swept a puff of 
chamois across her face, and got out, pushing 
her father before her. 

“What do you think of that?” she demanded. 
“And that money-grabber who charged me three 
dollars for the thing said it was vulcanized to 
go three thousand miles.” 

With the tire changed, and on their way once 
more, there was a subtle difference in their atti¬ 
tude, more of relaxation, less of tension. They 
sank back in their seats with the general blase 
attitude of the accustomed tourist. Hitherto they 
had been but experimenters on the highway of 
motordom, now they were deep in the running of 
things. The motor world was beneath their tires. 

Vivien and Teddy in the rear burst into song, 
and Mary Martha smiled reassuringly at her 
father, ashamed of herself because she was not 
quite able to banish that little, cavernous yawn¬ 
ing beneath her belt. 

While their general idea of direction had been 

50 


A DOOR THAT OPENED 


to “head straight west,” on the advice of expe¬ 
rienced drivers, they went first due north to Mel¬ 
rose in order to connect with the paved motor 
road, as the dirt roads in Iowa are not at their 
best in June. At Melrose, to their delight, they 
found themselves turning west, and their spirits 
soared in that knowledge. 

In spite of their distinct pronouncement in 
favor of the West, they had gratefully accepted a 
7ast and varied assortment of motor maps and 
logs, friendly gifts from the men at the garage, 
from the clerks at the drug-store, and from every 
other person in New Paris and environs who had 
Tver motor-toured in any direction, and saved 
his routings. Mary Martha took them all, and 
gladly. “For,” as she said, “we're starting west, 
but when you go off on an inspiration trip like 
ours, you can't tell where you may end.” 

From Melrose, through Osceola, they pro¬ 
ceeded without mishap. Near Creston, they 
stopped at a lovely spot beside the road to have 
their first camp dinner, for which they were more 

51 


MERRY O 


than ready. But unused as they were to making 
preparations in the open and to repacking the ap¬ 
parently unlimited number of odd-shaped pans 
and kettles that had been used, they consumed 
more time than they had anticipated. Their 
friends had assured them that by driving steadily 
they ought, by all means, to make Council Bluffs 
that evening, and now it was well in the after¬ 
noon and they were barely half the distance. 

Deciding, however, that the summer was be¬ 
fore them, and with no compelling pressure from 
the Inner Monitor who was their guide, they 
went on very leisurely, quite willing to “baby 
the Ford,” as Jeremy Lanton had strongly ad¬ 
vised. 

It was still quite early in the afternoon when 
they decided to pitch camp for the night in a 
pretty wooded valley near Villisca. And to get 
their establishment down to a solid, working basis 
without loss of time, it was agreed that Mr. 
McAllister and Vivien should make up the bed 
in the car and swing the hammock, while Mary 

52 


A DOOR THAT OPENED 


Martha, 'with Teddy to assist, prepared their 
meals. 

And so they spent their first night in the great 
outdoors, and lay awake for hours, very still, 
listening to all the myriad whisperings and rus¬ 
tlings of the summer night. 

Early the next morning they were on their 
way, reaching Council Bluffs a little after noon. 
In order to get an earlier start the following 
morning they crossed the river to Omaha at once. 
Here, they had been told, was a convenient and 
comfortable auto camp, to which they made their 
way slowly and laboriously, for neither Mary 
Martha nor the car she drove was used to city 
traffic. 

It was there, in the public park at Omaha, 
that Opportunity first opened a door to Mary 
Martha. 

Reaching the camp at an early hour, they pre¬ 
pared their beds, and unpacked the kitchen equip¬ 
ment in readiness for dinner later on. Then they 
took a walk, smiling with friendly'interest at the 

53 


MERRY O 


touring campers about them and being smiled on 
in return. Some one had dropped a newspaper 
on the grassy bank, and Teddy, catching sight of 
a “funny column,’’ pounced upon it, and as the 
others would not stop then for her to read it, 
she carried it back to their own comer of the 
camp. 

Vivien set to manicuring her nails, Mary 
Martha flung herself out in her father’s hammock, 
staring up through the leafy branches that 
screened the white-flecked sky, and Teddy read 
the “funnies.” When she finished the column, 
she threw it carelessly into the box of pans beside 
the car. 

Two hours later, when* Mary Martha reached 
for a pan in which to warm the evening beans, 
she found the paper. 

“Teddy, throw this in the basket over by that 
tree,” she called, prompted by the printed instruc¬ 
tions to keep the park tidy. But as she was in 
the very motion of giving the paper to her sister, 
she saw three words on the back sheet. 

54 


A DOOR THAT OPENED 


“Wanted : A Girl” 

Mary Martha read it, read it again, then 
turned back to the front and saw from the head¬ 
ing that the paper was of that day’s printing, and 
read it again. Then she folded it neatly and, 
bulky as it was, put it inside her blouse. 

The advertisement which had so intrigued her 
announced briefly that “E. Hankins and Com¬ 
pany” was in need of a young woman of good 
appearance and education, to do work of a liter¬ 
ary nature, and for whose services said E. 
Hankins and Company would gladly pay a good 
salary. 

“I knew something wonderful would happen 
to us as soon as we began to get west,” said 
Mary Martha. And she smiled. 

The next morning she left the family and the 
Ford cozily settled beneath the trees in the auto 
park, and with the aid of three street-cars and 
four policemen, finally found the desired number 
as given in the advertisement. Neither the neigh- 

55 


MERRY O 


borhood surrounding, nor the building that 
housed, E. Hankins and Company was prepossess¬ 
ing in appearance, but Mary Martha comforted 
herself with the idea it was an old part of town, 
as yet untouched by modern enterprise. 

Hurrying within, she was ushered at once into 
the presence of E. Hankins, who looked her over 
quite as thoroughly, Mary Martha thought, as 
though it were his intention to buy her outright, 
clothes and all. He asked about her family, and 
seemed.pleased at the eminent respectability of 
ministerial antecedents. He asked about her 
father’s general health, and again seemed pleased 
that he retained his early vigor, adding vaguely 
that maybe he could give him a nice little job as 
“recommender” after a time. As to Mary Mar¬ 
tha’s education and ability to write the King’s 
English, as understood and spoken in Nebraska, 
he seemed abundantly satisfied. When he asked 
her address, Mary Martha faltered a moment. 

“We’re camping,” she confessed. “We’ve been 
on a motor trip. We love it in the woods. But, 

56 


A DOOR THAT OPENED 


of course, if I accept a position we will locate 
permanently in town. ,, 

“Well, now I’ll tell you what,” said E. Hankins 
at last. “This is a particular job, and it’s not 
all that can do it. The only way to find out, 
is to try it and see. We’re patent-medicine mak¬ 
ers, and if I do say it myself, we’ve turned out 
a product that will carry the world and cure it. 
We’re just getting into shape to do big things, 
but we expect a swamping business in a couple 
of years.” 

“I—I don’t know a thing about medicine,” 
stammered Mary Martha. 

“You don’t have to. What we want is a good, 
blood-curdling writer to go through the doctor- 
book and write up the most distressing maladies 
in a way to make your hair stand on end, and 
then finish off by saying that nothing but E. 
Hankins ’ Animal Vita: will cure it. We’ve made 
a list of the worst diseases that we’re going after 
in particular, and we’re going to get out little 
booklets advertising them. We’ll send ’em all 

57 


MERRY O 


over the world, telling people how maybe they’ve 
got ’em and don’t know it, and how to be on the 
lookout for the first deadly symptom, and then, 
of course, come out strong on our Animal Vitce. 
Think you can do it? We’ll pay thirty dollars 
a week to any one who’s right there, and can 
write up them diseases in a way to make a well 
man think he has ’em.” 

To say that Mary Martha was horrified is a 
mild expression of her state of mind. She shook 
her head from side to side and blinked rapidly. 
An unexpected blow in the face would have been 
less shattering to her girlish confidence. Mary 
Martha had trustfully submitted herself to the 
guidance of Divine Love, which could not lead 
astray. She had devoutly promised herself that 
always and wherever she was, she would dissem¬ 
inate pictures of health, prosperity and joy, as 
became a child of Infinite Goodness. If thoughts 
are things, as she had read and implicitly be¬ 
lieved, Mary Martha had stoutly sworn that no 
creative power of hers should send out upon a 

58 


A DOOR THAT OPENED 


helpless world vibrations of sickness, sin and sor¬ 
row! 

And Mary Martha, trusting to divine guidance, 
had been led straight to E. Hankins, his doctor- 
book and Animal Vitce! 

On one point all the books had agreed,—that 
having set forth with confidence and assurance, 
under the direction of this Infinite Monitor, one 
must not turn back, must neither flinch nor falter. 
Mary Martha could tell the very page and para¬ 
graph in every book where this admonition ap¬ 
peared. Often, it seems, a thing which to our 
earth-trained vision appears mean or paltry, may 
yet fill its niche in the divine plan. Hence no op¬ 
portunity, however humble, may be refused. 

Mary Martha swallowed heavily. Well, per¬ 
haps, somewhere in this opportunity, certainly 
far out of sight and buried beyond her faintest 
imagining, lay the means of promulgating the 
doctrine of health by faith. She didn’t see it. 
She couldn’t even think it. But, “Refuse no op¬ 
portunity,” the books said. 

59 


MERRY O 


“I am sure I can do it,” she said feebly. “I 
have a very blood-curdling style.” 

“That’s good. You come in the morning at 
nine o’clock and I’ll have everything ready for 
you. Most of our girls come at eight, but liter¬ 
ary work like this is different, and we know you 
> 

have to make some concessions to authors and 
treat ’em right.” 

It was two miles to the public auto park, but 
Mary Martha walked every step of the way, 
grimly, doggedly, unhappily. She was a broken 
creature. But though she suffered, she did not 
hesitate. She had certainly been led—by some¬ 
thing—straight to E. Hankins. In all the chaos, 
that one thing was clear. She wondered, vaguely, 
if perhaps she might portray disease on the 
printed page, and then neutralize its effect by 
holding fast the image of perfect health. But 
that would hardly be fair to E. Hankins, who 
wished to sell his Animal Vita with her assist¬ 
ance. 

In response to clamorous inquiries as to her 

60 


A DOOR THAT OPENED 


position, Mary Martha was unnaturally cold and 
uncommunicative. 

“I got the position, certainly I did,” she said 
briefly. “It’s very good. . . . Nine o’clock. 

Thirty a week. . . . Well, yes, it’s lit¬ 
erary, I suppose. . . . Talk about something 

else.” 

And not another word could she be led to say 
on the subject. She went to bed immediately after 
she had her supper, and did not, as usual, precede 
sleep by a bit of devotional reading, by a few 
minutes of quiet meditation alone in the silence, 
by the series of deep breathing exercises with 
which she was accustomed to inhale strength and 
confidence, by her mumbled repetition with the 
twenty knots in a piece of string, nor even by her 
usual short sentence prayer beside the bed. 

Instead, she retired, simply and without cere¬ 
mony, to toss restlessly about in the small car 
until Vivien, in a high state of irritability, 
wrapped herself in a blanket and slept on the 
grass near the car. The next morning, Mary 

61 


MERRY O 


Martha ate no breakfast, but after drinking two 
cups of coffee, very strong and without sugar, 
stalked grimly away to enter upon her new duties. 

The others watched in silence until she was out 
of sight. 

“The bark of Merry O has struck a snag,” said 
Vivien, laughing. 

“Maybe she lost her string,” suggested Teddy. 

“Poor Merry O,” said her father sympatheti¬ 
cally and with great tenderness. “She rides so 
high when her wings carry her, that she gets a 
bad drop when she falls.” 

A stern-faced Mary Martha it was who entered 
that morning into the service of E. Hankins and 
Company. 

“Most of our girls work in a big room to¬ 
gether, so they can watch one another,” Mr. 
Hankins explained pleasantly. “But we thought 
we’d better give you a private office for literary 
work like yours.” 

Mary Martha thanked him, smiling wanly. 

“You don’t look any too up-to-snuff to-day,” 

62 


A DOOR THAT OPENED 


he said with rough sympathy. “Your eyes are 
peaked, and you’ve not got any color at all. You 
wait. I’ll fetch you a bottle of our Animal Vitce. 
It’ll fix you up in no time.” 

“Oh, no, thanks, I—” 

“We’re not going to charge you for it, you 
understand. Compliments of the house. Say, 
speaking of your father, how old is he? Pretty 
likely old chap for his years, you say?” 

“Yes, just fine. He is sixty-seven, but he is 
never sick.” 

“That’s good. Tell you what. You get him to 
take a couple bottles of our Animal Vitce and 
then write us up a strong recommend, mentioning 
him being a preacher, and superannuated and all, 
and we’ll give him fifty dollars.” 

She shook her head, smiling a little. “I don’t 
think—” 

“We’ll furnish the Vitce. Won’t cost him a 
cent. There’s some, of course, will take it on 
without bothering to drink the Vitce ,—but be¬ 
ing a preacher—” 


63 


MERRY O 


“I am afraid father would not—” 

“Make it a hundred, miss. And it’s easy 
money. It’s not as if it wasn’t good stuff. It is. 
I don’t care what he’s got, or even if he ain’t 
got a thing in the world, our Animal Vita’ll 
make him better. You ask him.” 

“I’ll ask him,” she compromised, at last. 
“Now, we got three humdingers for you to 
start on. Consumption, Bright’s Disease and Can¬ 
cer. Three, good, stiff, knock-’em-out diseases, 
that’ll scare the living daylights out of any 
mortal. You begin, as I said, on the first faint 
symptoms when they don’t know what they’ve 
got, or haven’t got anything, like as not, and 
lead ’em right up to the last ravages. And when 
you get these done, we’re going to get up a set 
of children’s books, with pretty pictures, and 
poems, and stories on one page, and then the 
gnawings of disease with pictures of it eating ’em 
to skin and bone on the other side.” 

When he had gone, Mary Martha took off her 
hat and gloves and sat down by the table, pulling 

64 


A DOOR THAT OPENED 


the huge materia medica toward her, distastefully 
but not without curiosity, and reached for a pad 
of paper. Consumption, Bright’s Disease and 
Cancer, three good knock-’em-out diseases, as he 
said! Poor Mary Martha! Hers was a vividly 
living imagination, and quickly her bright pic¬ 
tures of serene good health and happiness went 
glimmering. 

She had read that when the will and the imagi¬ 
nation engage in a contest, will always gives way 
before imagination. But she did not think of 
that. 

She bent over the book, and began to study 
the pages. By noon, she was really absorbed in 
her work, and did not take time to go for lunch¬ 
eon. In a way, she was thrilled with her own 
ability to absorb an impression and to make it 
real. She could almost feel the premonitory 
symptoms of the diseases she portrayed. It was 
positively illuminating to her that one could so 
bury one’s self in a picture as to make it so 
nearly real. She decided she must exert every 

65 


MERRY O 


ounce of her will power to throw off the impres¬ 
sions she was imbibing, or they might become 
real in fact,—since thoughts are things. 

“In a contest between the will and the imagi¬ 
nation—” But Mary Martha was too busy to 
think of Auto-Suggestion just then. 

By evening she was exhausted, her face was 
flushed, her temples were throbbing. She had 
worked very hard, indeed. She hurried home, 
ravenously hungry, and was able to discourse of 
the day’s work with some degree of interest. 

But she did not sleep well, and awoke in the 
morning with a dull head, and a weary ache in 
her shoulders. She cleared her throat frequently 
when she was talking, and wondered if, perhaps, 
she was getting asthma from the Nebraska cli¬ 
mate. Her father’s eyes were anxious as he 
watched her set off to her work again. 

“I don’t like this,” he said. “Not a bit! Merry 
O mustn’t lose track of what she’s only be¬ 
ginning to find.” 

At eleven o’clock that morning, when E. 

66 


A DOOR THAT OPENED 


Hankins dropped into her private office to see 
how she was getting along with the three most 
deadly diseases, Mary Martha was feverish, and 
the pain in her shoulders was severe. 

She looked at him pitifully. “I don’t feel so 
very good,” she acknowledged sorrowfully. 

“You need some of my Animal Vita,” he 
urged heartily. “You’re anemic. You’re all run 
down. Do you cough mornings?” 

She shook her head, and then as he took the 
paper to see what progress she had made, Mary 
Martha leaned back in her chair and closed her 
eyes wearily. She admitted to herself that she 
was feeling most wretchedly, she was certainly 
getting something, she must be getting something 
or she would not feel as she did. And then, sud¬ 
denly she realized that E. Hankins was reading 
aloud—reading what she had written—a dire and 
dreadful warning to the young, to the strong, 
the eager, the buoyant, the ambitious, to beware, 
beware of the first little ache, the first little pain, 
the first premonition of a fearful impending dis- 

67 


MERRY O 


aster! Mary Martha listened, more and more 
horrified, as he nodded his head in approval of 
each more startling adjective, following Mary 
Martha’s thought from the first vague little symp¬ 
tom,—petted into development, nursed into 
steady growth, magnified into mountain height,— 
into final Disease with clutching, icy fingers! 

Something snapped suddenly. Mary Martha 
cried out. 

“Oh, don’t,” she cried. “It is dreadful!” 

Like a flash she caught the paper from his hand 
and tore it into shreds, laughing through her 
nervous tears. E. Hankins backed quickly away 
from her. 

“You’re out of your head,” he said thickly. 
“You need a doctor, and a nurse, and a bottle 
of Animal Vitce .” 

“Oh, no, I don’t,” she assured him, shaking 
away the tears. “I just need to get a firm hold 
on my images of health.” 

“You—you’re fired,” he told her, backing 
farther away. 


68 


A DOOR THAT OPENED 


“I resigned long ago,” she declared. “When 
you were reading the first paragraph.” 

‘Til give you a couple of bottles of Vita,” 
he said kindly. “No charge, you understand. 
That’ll fix you up.” 

“I don’t need Vita. I want— Have you a 
little piece of string about you?” 

“String! String! You can’t hang yourself, 
miss, it’s against the law.” 

Mary Martha rubbed a slender hand across her 
throbbing temples, and said in a crooning, gentle 
whisper, “fa passe, ga passe, ga passe — Tell me 
when I get to twenty, will you?” 

But Mr. E. Hankins had rushed from the room 
in search of a doctor and a bottle of Animal 
Vita. So Merry O took her hat and gloves and 
walked quickly out of the office and down the 
street toward the auto park, whispering happily 
beneath her breath: 

“Day by day, in every way, m-m-m-m-m-m-m- 
better and better.” 


CHAPTER IV 


A REWARD OF VIRTUE 


T THREE o’clock, Mary Martha ran into 



ii camp and began hurriedly tucking dishes 
and pans into the box on the running board, but 
to the clamorous inquiries of the others she only 


said 


“We must start I’m surprised you weren’t 
all packed up long ago.” And she did not con¬ 
tribute anything further to appease their curiosity 
until they were settled in the car and turning 
toward Lincoln on the O. L. D. 

Then she smiled. “My headache’s lots better, 
thanks,” she said comfortably. “It wasn’t Op¬ 
portunity after all. It was a sort of Test, to 
try me out, and I must admit I came off a pretty 
poor second best.—Isn’t it thrilling to be ’way 
out here in Nebraska?” 


70 


A REWARD OF VIRTUE 


So they continued toward the West, cooking 
their meals by the roadside, camping at night in 
public auto parks or in shady groves, and buying 
fresh supplies from the farmers and at village 
stores. It was all very wonderful to them, very 
beautiful, and in spite of their economy, very ex¬ 
pensive for their slender means. 

As a traveling troupe of salesmen, business was 
not good. Those to whom Mary Martha hope¬ 
fully submitted her Book Department, were either 
frankly outspoken in their disapproval of “such 
books,” or had read them long ago from their 
village libraries. 

Mr. McAllister met with no greater success. 
“We’ve got a Bible,” he was told, again and 
again, with something like pained resentment, as 
if he had mistaken them for heathen, or as if 
any one would want two Bibles. 

But Vivien had great good luck in her venture, 
—so great that Mary Martha was moved to sus¬ 
picion, and at last announced her intention of 
going with her sister when she visited the next 

71 


MERRY O 


farm-house with her beauty wares. Her sus¬ 
picions were justified a hundred-fold. 

Vivien would not lie, but she was full to over¬ 
flowing with the guile that is deceit. In proffer¬ 
ing her cold cream, her hair tonic, her lotion for 
the hands and arms, she had but to bring to at¬ 
tention those features of her own, and the sale 
was made for her. 

“I can recommend it myself, I assure you,” 
said Vivien in her limpid tones. 

And the flushed, perspiring, sunburned woman 
of the Nebraska farm, looking at Vivien, look¬ 
ing at her beauty products, was set at once to 
dreaming dreams, and seeing visions of herself 
with just such skin, such hair, such hands as 
Vivien’s. And a little later, Vivien tripped away 
from the door in triumph. 

“That’s all very well,” said Mary Martha 
sternly. “We need the money, I admit. And it 
is true you didn’t exactly say anything, but it 
was plain enough what the woman thought. It 
says in the books that prosperity founded on pre- 

72 


A REWARD OF VIRTUE 


tense—faking, you know,—is not true prosperity, 
and will not endure. You read the book on 
Success, and How to Attain It, and you’ll see. 
The first rule is, play fair. So if you’re going 
to make folks think you use that crazy stuff, you 
have to use it.” 

Vivien protested, almost with tears, fearing 
her loveliness, in which she took such pride, might 
suffer from the treatment. But Mary Martha 
was firm. They were after prosperity with the 
solid ring, and this, according to her books, and 
even according to Common Sense, as expounded 
by Jeremy Lanton, to say nothing of their 
father’s strict Methodism, could only be acquired 
by a strict adherence to the basic principles of 
honor and integrity. 

And that evening, and every evening there¬ 
after, before Mary Martha settled herself to the 
nightly rites of meditation, concentration, twen¬ 
ty knots and prayer, she put Vivien through her 
course of beauty culture. 

Vivien acknowledged afterward that it helped 

73 


MERRY O 


business. “May I just show you my complexion 
cream? I use it myself every night/’ she would 
venture softly. And there is yet to live the 
woman, noting that exquisitely pink and creamy 
skin, who could resist the cream it recommended. 
A lotion for the hands required no word of 
praise, for Vivien’s mild statement, “I use it 
every night,” was the beginning and end of the 
transaction. And even Vivien took a sort of 
heroic satisfaction in the fact that it was so 
strictly honorable a method, for when she said 
she used it every night, thanks to Mary Martha’s 
zeal, she did use it. 

But while the beauty business thrived apace, 
only Mary Martha reaped the benefits of her 
Traveling Book Department, for she studied 
every day, and practised everything she read with 
unabated confidence. But The Sheik and India's 
Love Lyrics she kept in the very bottom of the 
tool chest under the oil-can, to forestall any pry¬ 
ing curiosity on the part of giddy Vivien or im¬ 
pressionable Teddy. 


74 


A REWARD OF VIRTUE 


It was at a farm-house near Minden, where 
they stopped for water, all trooping out to the 
well together, that the woman, looking with great 
interest at the three laughing rosy girls, said 
timidly: 

“I suppose you wouldn’t— Maybe you wouldn't 
even think of it— We need some girls to pick 
cherries very much, and we can't get any one, 
and—we'll pay very well." Her voice and man¬ 
ner indicated the reticence she felt in making 
such an offer, as well as the greatness of her 
need. 

To her surprise Mary Martha answered heart- 
ily. “We’d love to. We’ve never done that yet, 
and it will be good fun as well as experience, and 
then, we need the money." Mary Martha was 
never forgetful of those dwindling finances, and 
was always mindful, too, that in any venture led 
by Divine Love one must follow the guidance. 

So they set up camp in a shady valley beside 
a running creek near the farm, and the girls 
picked cherries for a week, their father also lend- 

75 


MERRY O 


ing a hand now and then. And from the house, 
the kindly and grateful woman sent them fruit 
and eggs and milk, and they felt that prosperity 
was beginning, even though faintly, to smile upon 
them. 

A week later they started on, westward again, 
with a heaping hamper from the farmer’s cellar 
in addition to nineteen dollars in cash. Mary 
Martha felt greatly encouraged. 

“It’ll be just one thing after another,” she said 
aloud, but more to herself than to the others. 
“One thing after another until the Big and Beau¬ 
tiful !” 

“I hope the next thing is nothing to pick,” said 
Vivien. “I won’t be able to sell any lotion until 
I cure those scratches on my arms. You’re aw¬ 
fully slow with my rich husband, Merry O. Can’t 
you demonstrate him a little faster?” 

After driving steadily for several hours, they 
stopped under a thick clustering shade beside the 
creek, for their luncheon, and afterward the girls 
took off their shoes and stockings and waded in 

76 


A REWARD OF VIRTUE 


the clear water, while their father slept peace¬ 
fully on the roll of blankets under the trees. 
Presently, wading up-stream, came three chil¬ 
dren, with buckets of blackberries they had picked 
a little farther down the wood. With the usual 
clubbiness of parsonage folk, the girls entered at 
once into conversation with them, and when the 
details of their romantic adventure into the won¬ 
der westland were revealed, the oldest of the three 
looked covetously up to the grimy Ford beneath 
the trees. 

“Say,” she volunteered suddenly. “If you 
start right now, and go fast, I’ll go along with 
you. I’m plumb disgusted, and I was just figur¬ 
ing on eloping anyhow, and I’d rather go with 
a gang than go alone.” 

Mary Martha promptly disclaimed her will¬ 
ingness to assist in such elopement. “You ought 
to be ashamed to think of running away,” she 
said, in her most ministerial tone. 

“You’re running away, whole kit and kaboodle 
of you,” came back defiantly. 

77 


MERRY O 


“We’re not running away from one another. 
We’re just running away from a town where we 
couldn’t make a living. But you’ve got a nice 
home, and loving parents, and, friends—” 

“Oh, shucks! What do they make me go to 
school in summer for? I’ve been getting educa¬ 
tion now ever since I can remember, and come 
summer-time I need a rest.” 

Pressed for an explanation of the exact state 
of affairs, it developed that the school bus which 
served their neighborhood to collect students for 
the high school ten miles away, was not required 
to make the trip for less than twenty students. 
They had but nine to offer for the coming year. 
A poll of the neighborhood showed that by con¬ 
ducting a summer school, with able coaching, 
and perhaps a little generous overlooking at the 
end, there were a dozen others who could make 
the high-school grade by fall. In their zeal for 
the education of their youth, these rich and sturd¬ 
ily persistent farmers did not hesitate. A sum¬ 
mer school was the answer, and Deacon Wesley 

78 


A REWARD OF VIRTUE 


Brady, the very next day following, was going 
to town to procure a teacher for the high-school 
aspirants—in absolute opposition, however, to 
the desires of said aspirants. 

Mary Martha leaped from the water, and 
grabbed her shoes. “He needn’t go,” she cried 
joyously. “He’s got a teacher. I came on pur¬ 
pose. I knew it all the time. I know more about 
high school than—the high school knows.” 

The children stared at her soberly, uncon¬ 
vinced. “You’re too young,” said the oldest of 
the trio finally. “We never have teachers that 
wade in the creek and have curls and wear short 
skirts. Deacon Wesley Brady will never hire 
you.” 

“I don’t wade very often,” Mary Martha as¬ 
sured her. “You—you needn’t mention it to any 
one. We were very hot and dusty from the long 
drive, and cleanliness is next to—a high-school 
education. And my hair isn’t as curly as this 
except when I’m very hot. And I was going 
to lengthen my skirts anyhow.” 

79 


MERRY O 


Vivien was drawn forcibly from the water to 
assist in Mary Martha’s preparations for an at¬ 
tack upon the deacon, and after the children had 
given directions for finding him, the two girls 
flew up the bank to the camp. While Vivien let 
out the hem of Mary Martha’s best skirt, Maiy 
Martha herself brushed the lovely, unscholarly 
curls rigidly back from her brow and fastened 
the golden heap in a sternly uncompromising 
knot at the back of her head. 

Then she quickly slipped on a plain white 
blouse, with ornamental buttons to the neck, 
which she usually turned down in a jaunty fash¬ 
ion on both sides, leaving her throat bare. But 
for this occasion, she buttoned it in military fash¬ 
ion clear to her chin, and further emphasized the 
martial note by tying a narrow black ribbon in 
a tailored bow in front. With something of a 
sigh, she cut the perky bow of scarlet ribbon 
from her hat and taking a pair of large owl-eyed 
amber-tinted glasses from the pocket of the car, 
put them on without a waver. With her skirt 

80 


A REWARD OF VIRTUE 


now just missing the ground she felt she looked 
far more pedagogical than any mere deacon had 
reason to require, and was strengthened in this 
belief by Vivien’s peals of derisive laughter, as 
she told her she “looked a fright.” 

The Ford had developed an alarming wheeze 
during the last few hours of driving, so Mary 
Martha set out in the deep dust and the hot sun¬ 
shine to walk the two miles to the deacon’s 
house. Streaked with dust and perspiration and 
attired as she was, there was in her nothing ap¬ 
parent of cheery Merry O, but she stopped behind 
a great lilac bush before she entered the house, 
wiped away the dust, and smoothed back the 
truant curls yet more severely. 

The deacon was at home, and very ready to 
talk business, seeming indeed relieved at anything 
that would save him a trip to town. He asked a 
few aimless questions, which she answered read¬ 
ily. Naturally, the morals of a daughter of a 
Methodist minister, even superannuated, were 
quite above reproach. 


81 


MERRY O 


“No, I have not really taught school,” she con¬ 
fessed reluctantly, when pinned to a decisive 
answer, wondering if perhaps there might not 
be something she had overlooked in one of the 
books, to justify a mild prevarication in a case 
of need so dire. “But I was always a great stu¬ 
dent, and I am a high-school graduate myself, 
and have done quite a little tutoring in high- 
school work.” 

This was strictly true, for Vivien, who was 
notoriously indifferent to study of any sort, 
would never have reached the second year except 
for Mary Martha’s persistent coaching. 

“And then for three years,” she continued, “I 
had entire charge of the Book and Study De¬ 
partment of the J. G. Barnes Emporium in New 
Paris, Iowa.” 

“And you think you’ll know just what to give 
’em to fix ’em up tip-top for high school in the 
fall?” 

“Oh, absolutely. I did that very work, with 
great success, just two years ago.” 

82 


A REWARD OF VIRTUE 


And so she did, for Vivien had failed to pass 
out of the eighth grade according to schedule, 
and Mary Martha, in consequence, gave her a 
grievous summer with her books. 

“Well, now, we figure on two months’ school. 
There’s twelve of us, and we count on payin’ 
five dollars a piece a month. If you calculate 
you can put ’em in shape, and will do it for that 
figure, I don’t see as there’s any more to be said. 
We don’t want no flighty-tighty youngster gad- 
din’ around, but you seem like a woman of some 
judgment, and you look plain and homely enough, 
so I don’t see but you’ll do first-rate, and save me 
a trip into the bargain. The schoolhouse ’ll be 
open Monday morning, and if your father, as you 
say, figures on livin’ outdoors for a spell, why, 
there’s no reason why you can’t pitch a good camp 
near the school and have a nice time of it. We’re 
a sociable neighborhood, and we have a good 
many parties, and ice-cream socials, and what¬ 
nots, and as the teacher, of course, you’ll take 
a pretty prominent part in the goings-on.” 

83 


MERRY O 


Mary Martha could hardly believe her good 
fortune. Oh, Divine Love was wonderful! As 
soon as she turned her back upon a prosperity 
which came through the dissemination of false 
belief and error—Behold, the reward of virtue! 

She held her feet to a steady walk as long as 
she was within sight of the deacon’s windows, 
and then she ran a little, in very jubilance of 
spirit. Then she walked again, thinking deeply, 
very grateful in her warm young heart for this 
beautiful thing that had happened. 

“Ride, lady?” A car whirled by in a cloud 
of dust, and the brakes ground noisily, as it slid 
some yards ahead before the driver could bring 
it to a stop. 

“Yes, please,” called Mary Martha. And, for¬ 
getting the weight of scholasticism, she made a 
flying leap after the car. Her hat fell off, but 
she caught it lightly in her hand, still running. 
The amber-tinted glasses tumbled in the dust by 
the roadside, but she did not notice. Springing 
lightly on the buoyant feet of twenty young and 

84 


A REWARD OF VIRTUE 


happy years, Mary Martha swung gaily into the 
back seat of the car, laughing. 

“Oh, thanks, awfully/’ she said. 

The little curls were tumbled enticingly now 
about her flushed face, and her starry eyes shone 
exultingly, with no sheltering amber shade to 
hide the blue. Unmindful, and resenting the un¬ 
accustomed restraint at her throat, she pulled off 
the narrow black ribbon, and loosed the upper¬ 
most buttons,—Merry O, in truth again, happy, 
and fair to look upon! 

The two men in the front seat, father and son, 
turned about and stared in astonishment at this 
sudden transformation from what had seemed a 
feeble, trudging, middle-aged woman, with drag¬ 
ging skirts and drooping head, to a laughing, 
light-hearted, light-footed, golden-crowned girl. 


CHAPTER V 


WHOM THE GODS LOVE 

M ARY MARTHA was too happy to keep 
still. “It’s awfully good of you,” she said 
with her chatty friendliness of manner, leaning 
over toward the front seat. “It’s so hot and dusty, 
—though I should forget it if I could just settle 
down to think,—and I’m in such a hurry to get 
home and tell the good news.” Mary Martha’s 
voice was singing. 

“You seem to be a stranger in these parts, 
miss.” It was the father who spoke. 

“Yes, we’re motoring through from Iowa to— 
Oh,—somewhere! My father was a Methodist 
minister there, but he was superannuated, and so 
we decided to go back to nature a while. It’s 
supposed to be very good for you.” 

“Just you and your father?” 

“And two younger sisters. We want to locate 

86 


WHOM THE GODS LOVE 


somewhere, to stay forever. We’re just going 
to keep on until we find a place, and realize it is 
the best place in the world for us. That’s New 
Thought.” 

“It sounds new.” 

“But right now we are going to camp here 
for two months, and I am going to teach the 
summer school for Deacon Brady.” 

“Teach school! You don’t look like a school¬ 
teacher.” 

Mary Martha clapped her hand to her eyes. 
“Oh, mercy, I’ve lost those glasses. I look much 
more like a teacher when I have them on. Never 
mind, I’ll get another pair,” she added grandly, 
remembering the sixty dollars a month. “A won¬ 
derful thing has just happened to me,” she went 
on, unable to resist the temptation to share her 
joy. “I had a position in Omaha, and I needed the 
money, too, most awfully, but I gave it up—be¬ 
cause it was sending out the wrong kind of vibra¬ 
tions. Though really I don’t deserve much 
credit for it, because I didn’t give it up until I 

87 


MERRY O 


was just ready to catch consumption and Bright’s 
disease and cancer. But anyhow, I gave it up, 
and then Divine Love led us right here, and took 
me straight up to the deacon’s house, and gave 
me the position as summer teacher at sixty dollars 
a month. That’s Christian Science. It’s God’s 
law of adjustment. And it shows too that I am 
developing right along. Because as soon as you 
develop up to a certain point, you are bound to 
get just what is coming to you. That is Theos¬ 
ophy.” 

Both men nodded, vague as to her meaning, 
but generally agreeable. The young man, who 
was driving, stopped the car at a gate beside the 
road. 

‘Til take the young lady on down to their 
camp, father,” he said. ‘Til be back in a few 
minutes.” 

His father did not move. ‘Til go along, son. 
As a good Methodist, and seein’s her father’s a 
preacher, I think I’d better go along and give him 
the glad hand of welcome.” 

88 


WHOM THE GODS LOVE 


“I can send him up here to see you.” 

“It’s more neighborly for me to go first.” 

“Oh, all right, just as you say, dad.” 

The father turned to Mary Martha. “Young 
lady, think you could use some butter and eggs, 
and maybe some garden truck?” 

“Oh, I know we could,” she cried joyously. 
“You’re so good.” 

He got out at once and started toward the 
house. 

“I said wait, Bud,” he called back over his 
shoulder. 

Bud turned about in his seat. “If you lost 
your glasses maybe you better sit over here where 
there’s not so much wind,” he suggested. 

“Oh, I couldn’t take your father’s place,” she 
protested. 

“He likes the back seat better, anyhow, he likes 
the breeze.” 

Under those circumstances, Mary Martha con¬ 
sented to the exchange, and when the old man 
returned, with a well-filled basket, he peered at 

89 


MERRY O 


them both sharply, his face wrinkled up in the 
sun. 

“I made her come over here, on account of 
losing her glasses,” his son explained. “And I 
said you liked the back seat better anyhow, don’t 
you, dad?” 

“I better like it, I mostly get it,” he grumbled, 
not ill-naturedly, as he clambered in. 

Mary Martha’s return to camp, in a car that 
neither rattled nor wheezed, escorted by two stal¬ 
wart Nebraskans, lugging a heavy, heavenly 
basket, met with the awed respect it merited. Mr. 
McAllister came to meet them, with the easy 
cordiality of his calling. Brother Gibbons, not 
to be outdone in courtesy, welcomed him into the 
neighborhood and invited him to pitch permanent 
camp in Mr. Gibbons’ own pasture, where he 
could easily get fresh supplies from the farm¬ 
house. In addition he offered to lend him a big 
tent for the summer, which would add to the 
comfort of their menage, although Brother Gib¬ 
bons did not so word it 

90 


WHOM THE GODS LOVE 


Bud Gibbons, lifting the hood and looking into 
the wheezy Ford, knew instantly just what was 
the matter with it and how to remedy that mat¬ 
ter. He spent fifteen minutes turning and screw¬ 
ing, and the wheeze was gone. 

Mary Martha, as hostess, begged both men to 
remain for supper in camp, but the demands 
of the farm made it impossible for them to 
accept. 

“There’s a street fair going on in town to¬ 
night,” Bud Gibbons said bashfully, but with 
determination. “It’s good sport. Ferris-wheel, 
side-shows, dancing in the street and everything. 
If I come by after supper will you go?” 

Mary Martha hesitated. 

“All of you, I mean,” he hastily added. “Lots 
of room in the car. Take the whole push.” 

“Oh, let’s,” pleaded Vivien. 

“Me, too,” clamored Teddy. 

“Oh, father, will you—” 

“You girls go,” he said, with the guileless inno¬ 
cence of the good, grown old, “I’ll sleep.” 

91 


MERRY O 


“Oh, but, father—” Mary Martha’s voice was 
insistent 

“Lots of room for everybody,” repeated Bud. 

“Father, if you won’t go—” 

“Oh, all right, all right. We’ll go, young man, 
and thanks.” 

They drove away, the Gibbons, father and son, 
Bud looking back to that bright spot under the 
trees, which was Mary Martha, her golden curls 
clustered about her shining face. 

After all, although camping had its charms and 
thrills, it seemed rather good to the McAllisters to 
be city folks again, going the rounds of the bright 
streets, with their flags and their streamers of 
colored lights. Carefully conducted by Bud Gib¬ 
bons they made the circuit of the two blocks again 
and again, hopefully and with much laughter 
tossing rings and racing ponies in the candy lot¬ 
tery, riding the Ferris-wheel and merry-go-round, 
and munching joyously on pop-corn, peanuts and 
candy. 


92 


WHOM THE GODS LOVE 


Then from down the street sounded the first 
call of the band. “Come on, they’re going to 
dance till midnight,” urged Bud. 

The comer at the farther end of the street had 
been squared off with ropes, and there, under 
a great canopy of many colored lights the young 
of the community, as well as many of their elders, 
grouped gaily for the street dance. 

They watched the first in silence, standing all 
five close together. Then as Teddy and Vivien 
frankly preferred the more riotous section of the 
fair, their father volunteered to go back with 
them, arranging to return later on for Mary 
Martha and Bud. When they were alone, Bud 
moved companionably closer to Mary Martha. 

“I reckon—I suppose —he wouldn’t let you 
dance,” said young Gibbons with shy dejection, 
his eyes upon her pretty chin, for as yet he lacked 
the courage to meet her deep blue eyes. 

“Oh, yes, he lets me,” was the surprising an¬ 
swer. 

“Gosh, ain’t he sensible!” came Bud’s heart- 

93 


MERRY O 


felt ejaculation. And then in a moment they 
were under the ropes, ecstatically swinging to the 
jazzy tilt of the country band. 

For some time, Bud was speechless. Mary 
Martha’s smiling face, framed in its golden circlet 
close against his shoulder, where by the slightest 
movement of his head his lips could not avoid 
touching it, deprived him of his speech and his 
breath. It was she who broke the silence when 
it became a little awkward. 

“It’s lots of fun.” She smiled at him in a way 
that threw him entirely out of step. “Wouldn’t 
it be terrible if we were the other kind of preacher 
who thinks it a wicked sin?” 

“You could have knocked me down with a 
feather,” he admitted. “I never saw a preacher 
before with such good judgment.” 

“Of course, father’s been superannuated quite 
a long while, and I’ve noticed they’re never quite 
so scrappy about things when they’re superan¬ 
nuated. It sort of softens them.” 

The third dance was a one-step, a one-step 

94 


WHOM THE GODS LOVE 


that went at the rate of a gallop,—a very fast 
gallop at that. 

Alas for Merry O! Bud, driven quite reckless 
with the nearness and sweetness of her presence, 
flung timidity to the winds, and clasping her 
firmly in his arm, swung her the length of the 
square with glad abandon. Mary Martha clung 
desperately to Bud, her face flushed, her eyes 
shining, her scarlet lips parted with the desire 
to laugh, for which she quite lacked breath. And 
so, at the farthest side of the square, glancing up 
suddenly, she looked straight into the glowering, 
accusing eyes of Deacon Wesley Brady. 

“Oh!” Mary Martha’s faint gasp struck to the 
heart of Bud’s excitement, and he stopped 
abruptly. He looked at her, and following the 
direction of her horrified gaze, met the furious 
eyes of the deacon. 

“So that’s the howdy-do,” he said at once, not 
loudly but with incisive scorn. “I wouldn’t ’a’ be¬ 
lieved it, but when everybody kept say in’, Who’s 
the new little chicken with Bud Gibbons?’ I 

95 


MERRY O 


thought I’d just have a look. And I find it’s 
that nice middle-aged respectable school-teacher 
o’ mine gone on a rampage. You’re fired, miss, 
minister’s daughter or no minister’s daughter.” 

Like a satisfied god who has wreaked his venge¬ 
ance, he turned about haughtily and stalked away 
without a backward glance. Mary Martha 
dwindled into a dejected, huddled heap, cling¬ 
ing to Bud’s arm. 

“Dad’ll talk to him, Merry O,” he said bravely, 
in his dilemma using the pretty name he heard 
her sisters call her. “Don’t feel bad about it. 
Dad’ll talk to him.” 

But Mary Martha shook her head. “Let’s find 
father and the girls,” she said. “You’re awfully 
good—but I feel,” she smiled faintly, “I’m almost 
homesick for New Paris.” 


CHAPTER VI 


RENDERING UNTO C.ESAR 


T HE next morning, with the first pale 
streaks of the dawn, Mary Martha was 
stirring about in the camp beneath the trees, pull¬ 
ing the blankets away from her sisters in her 
haste to finish the packing and be on her way. 
Mary Martha’s one idea now was to get out of 
Nebraska at the earliest possible moment. Early 
as she was, however, even before they had finished 
their hasty breakfast, came Bud and his father 
to pay a call of condolence. Bud was inconsolable 
at the disaster he could but feel his infatuation 
had wrought, but Mary Martha, after medita¬ 
tion and slumber, took it philosophically. After 
all, in a way, it would have been rather an anti- 
climactic finish, to her romantic plans and dreams, 
to end the summer teaching a country school in 
the heart of Nebraska. As long as Fate held open 

9 7 


MERRY O 


the door of Opportunity for her, she offered no 
opposition. But when it slammed unexpectedly, 
leaving Bud Gibbons on the other side, after the 
first abject moment of her humiliation, Mary 
Martha knew she was satisfied. 

From practical experience with his own car, 
Bud was a clever mechanic, and vented his feel¬ 
ings in regard to his blasted romance and shat¬ 
tered hopes by attacking the recalcitrant Ford 
with speechless fury. So that when, a little later, 
the McAllisters took to the road again, it motored 
irreproachably. 

They drove steadily all day, for the Nebraska 
air, to Mary Martha at least, had suffered a 
serious taint, and she was anxious to put it behind 
her. Late that afternoon, finding no more suit¬ 
able place, they pitched a hurried camp in a grassy 
bank by the roadside, a few miles east of the 
Colorado line. And starting early the fol¬ 
lowing morning, with eager spirits soaring high 
once more, they left Nebraska behind and entered 
Colorado, the key-state to the West. Nebraska, 

98 


RENDERING UNTO CiESAR 


even up to within an inch of the other side of 
the boundary, was commonplace and “middle,” 
but this was getting to the heart of things at last. 
They sniffed the air with quickened, sensitive 
nostrils, and realized at once that the Colorado 
climate is not in any sense to be confounded or 
compared with lesser, lower climates. 

“Cowboys!” 

It was the first word spoken by a McAllister 
in Colorado,—a ringing, triumphant call from 
Teddy! Unfortunately, Mary Martha in her de¬ 
light was driving fast, and they caught but a 
fleeting glimpse of those harbingers of mountain 
and desert. There were two of them, long, lank 
and brown, clad in khaki as they would be, wear¬ 
ing leather puttees, and low-set caps, as they sat 
inert and motionless on the rocks beside the road 
and smoked. 

“Now, you drive more slowly, Merry O,” cau¬ 
tioned Vivien, “I didn’t see them, and I wouldn’t 
have missed the first cowboy for anything in the 
world.” 


99 


) 



> > ) 


MERRY O 


In celebration of having achieved the heights 
of Colorado, Mary Martha fairly outdid herself, 
when they stopped for dinner, in the preparation 
of a wonderful meal. She was calling them to 
the festive cloth,—no less festive because it was 
of the faded oil variety, spread upon the ground, 
when another car pulled up beside their own, and 
the driver, stopping his motor, swung quickly 
out and crossed toward them under the fragrant 
pines. 

He inquired briefly as to the road they had 
come, and the distance they had traveled from 
the state line. Then he asked if they had seen 
another car camping farther along, explaining 
that he was trying to overtake a party of 
friends and was having considerable trouble with 
his motor. 

Mr. McAllister answered his questions cor¬ 
dially, and assured him they had passed no 
campers at all that morning, certainly none within 
the border-line of Colorado. 

“We didn’t see anybody but some cowboys,” 

100 

c 

c * <■ t 
< f 

(i « 


RENDERING UNTO (UESAR 


put in Teddy suddenly. “Sitting on the rocks, 
and they had guns and everything.” 

Her father smiled deprecatingly at Teddy’s 
outburst, but the stranger regarded her with 
friendly interest. 

“Cowboys! Were they galloping over the 
plains?” 

Teddy expanded at his interest. “No, they 
just sat on the rocks beside the state line, but they 
wore boots and army clothes and had guns on 
their belts.” 

The stranger smiled at the description and 
mopping his brow with something of weariness, 
he said, “Well, I suppose I’ll have to walk to 
town. My car is completely done up, so I’ll have 
to hoof it back for help.” 

Mr. McAllister made haste to proffer a par¬ 
sonage welcome to the woods. “Why not have 
a camp dinner with us, and then let us take you 
into town? We can tow your car back if you 
like, and save you a big bill. And glad to oblige 
you, I’m sure.” 


101 


MERRY O 


The stranger’s reluctance to accept this hos¬ 
pitality was born of nothing more than polite¬ 
ness, and in a moment he was seated with them 
on the ground, hearing the details of their ad¬ 
venture westward. Mr. Dillson, as he intro¬ 
duced himself, being a Methodist by birth' 
and breeding, was soon “brothering” Mr. Mc- 

i 

Allister and being brothered in return, and as 
they ate, he studied his companion with quiet 
speculation, observing the minister’s thin, smooth- 
shaven cheeks, then rubbing caressive fingers 
over his own close-cropped, graying beard and 
mustache. 

“You’re pretty wise to go smooth shaved, 
brother,” he said at last. “I fancy you’re a bit 
older yet than I, but my beard adds ten years to 
my age, and that slick chin of yours subtracts 
as much for you.” 

Mr. McAllister, laughing, acknowledged that 
to be his own opinion, whereupon Mr. Dillson an¬ 
nounced his intention to sacrifice his tonsorial 
growth upon the altar of manly youth and beauty. 

102 


RENDERING UNTO CAESAR 


The others laughed skeptically at this, but he in¬ 
sisted that he was serious, and turning to Teddy 
said: 

“Trot out your father’s razor, sister, and you 
shall judge my beauty, before and after.” 

Teddy, enjoying such a whimsical notion, 
hastened to comply, Mary Martha brought a basin 
of hot water, and they all grouped about him 
as he performed the solemn rites. Afterward 
they were unanimous in declaring that he had 
shaved off ten years from his appearance. 

“And what’s more,” said Mr. Dillson, laughing 
with them, “I’ll bet if I had a little black tie 
like your father’s, I’d make a better-looking 
preacher than he does.” 

Her curiosity stimulated by this sporting offer, 
Teddy rummaged in the bag until she found a 
tie, and danced about the stranger as he put it on. 
And when he smoothed out the rakish crush in 
his black hat, setting it with mild decorum on 
his brow, they warmly assured him that he was 
a Methodist minister from the tie up. 

103 


MERRY O 


While Mr. McAllister helped the girls repack 
the luncheon equipment, Mr. Dillson worked pa¬ 
tiently with his car, trying in vain to restore it to 
running order. 

“May I use your tools, brother ?” he called 
down to Mr. McAllister. 

“Help yourself! Anything you want,” rang 
back the hearty answer. 

By the time the bags were in place he had 
his car roped firmly behind the little Ford, and 
taking his place at the wheel to guide it, asked 
Mary Martha to stop at the first garage, which 
was irr the village a few miles farther on. When 
she reached the garage, and almost before she had 
brought the Ford to a standstill, Mr. Dillson, 
anxious to delay them as little as possible, was 
out of his car and in the garage to make arrange¬ 
ments for the necessary repairs. He came out 
a moment later with two mechanics, who released 
his smart little racer, while Mr. Dillson himself, 
having agreed to continue to the city with his 
newly-made friends, stepped quickly into the 

104 


RENDERING UNTO C /ESAR 


rear seat between the two younger girls, and 
said: 

“All right, let’s go.” 

As Mary Martha started the car, the mechanic 
tipped his cap, and called : 

“All right, Mr. McAllister, I’ll wire you at New 
Paris.” 

But by this time the car was on its way. 

“New Paris!” echoed the McAllisters, in sur¬ 
prise. 

“Yes, I have to tour Nebraska and Iowa on 
business, and expect to make New Paris in a 
couple of weeks. He figured it would take about 
that long to fix me up, so I told him to wire me 
there.” 

Mr. McAllister turned around in his seat. “He 
said 'McAllister,’ ” he began slowly. 

“I had to give him your name and license num¬ 
ber as reference. A license number is identi¬ 
fication, you know. I hope you do not mind. 
He got the names mixed, and called me McAllis¬ 
ter, by mistake, instead of Dillson.” 

105 


MERRY O 


This was a reasonable explanation, and the 
Ford continued serenely toward the city. 

For the first time, Mr. Dillson began to show 
some annoyance at the unexpected interruption of 
his plans. He looked often at his watch, finger¬ 
ing it nervously, and wore an air of ab¬ 
straction which even the merry chatter of the 
girls did not penetrate. 

“The train east makes the junction below here 
in ten minutes,” he said suddenly. “It stops on 
flag. Instead of going on to the city with you, 
I think I’d better catch the train there and get 
headed east. I’ve wasted too much time already.” 

Mary Martha came to a stop at the crossroad 
as he indicated, and when he stepped out with 
his bag, he said hesitatingly: 

“Mr. McAllister,—don’t be offended, but—I 
want to make you a little gift. I can never repay 
your kindness, I know. But we business men 
too often forget to lend our support to the church 
and its ministers. I want you to take this.” 

He held out his hand with a little roll of bills, 

106 


RENDERING UNTO CAESAR 


a ten and three fives, crisp and new. The minister 
shook his head, but the other was hurriedly in¬ 
sistent. 

“You’ve got to. To please me. You have 
done me far more good than you realize. Take 
it. It is in the name of the church you repre¬ 
sent.” 

When it was presented in that light, Mr. Mc¬ 
Allister felt he need refuse no longer, but took 
it gratefully. Dillson did not wait to hear his 
word of thanks, but swinging his hat gaily toward 
the girls, made off down the track. 

“Now you see,” chanted Mary Martha jubi¬ 
lantly. “Sometimes it is berries to pick, some¬ 
times it’s a basket of vegetables, or free work 
on the motor, and now it’s twenty-five dollars! 
Divine Love always has met, and always will 
meet—” 

“And if it’s nothing else, it’s a bottle of Ani¬ 
mal Vit<z or a pair of amber-colored spectacles,” 
teased Vivien, but Mary Martha joined heartily 
in their laughter. 


107 


MERRY O 


They were coming now into the hill country, 
the real hill country that leads at last to the moun¬ 
tains in the cloudy heights, and they were thrilled 
a little, seeing always in the road ahead, .the 
Future and what it might hold. 

They drove very slowly because they wished 
to prolong the joy of it, because Mr. McAllister 
was inclined to develop nerves in high speed, and 
chiefly because of the need to “baby the car,” 
which was their motor by-word. 

It was very late in the afternoon, as they 
sought a place to make their camp for the night, 
that Teddy espied a tall, lean, sunburned man, 
properly clad in khaki, sitting on a fallen log 
beside the road. 

Vivien flung herself impetuously to her sister’s 
side of the car, and both girls leaned out over 
the door, gazing back at the cowboy with wide- 
eyed avid interest. The effect on the man was 
electric. He leaped from the log, and stared 
after them, one hand shielding his eyes. 

“Girls, don’t do that,” cautioned Mary Martha. 

108 


RENDERING UNTO CESAR 


“He thought you were trying to flirt with him. 
Cowboys are awfully susceptible.” 

“Wasn’t he gorgeous?” whispered Vivien. “I 
wonder if he is rich.” 

She turned about in her seat to look back 
through the dusty window at the sacred spot he 
had favored with his presence. Then she gave 
a startled cry. 

“Oh, look! He’s on a motorcycle! He’s com¬ 
ing after us!” 

Mary Martha turned pale. She had seen 
movies of cowboys in action. She knew all about 
their breezy unconventionality. Doubtless he had 
marked the lovely youth of pretty Vivien, and 
how she had thrilled at the sight of him. Doubt¬ 
less he was coming now to claim her as his law¬ 
ful, cave-man bride. Doubtless—Mary Martha 
clenched her teeth together, and literally “stepped 
on the gas.” 

Vivien and Teddy, in the rear, shamelessly 
hung over the door to look back at him, not, 
it must be confessed, without a secret hope that 

109 


MERRY O 


he would overtake them in their flight. And he 
did. The little aspiring Ford had no chance to 
escape the noisy fiend pursuing with relentless 
steadiness of purpose. Almost before she rea¬ 
lized how madly she was racing, the motorcycle 
swept up beside her, and the khaki-clad rider 
authoritatively signaled her to stop. Mary Martha 
bit her scarlet lips and pressed harder upon the 
gas. At least, he must take them by force, she 
would never yield without a struggle. The man 
in khaki seemed amazed at her defiance, he yelled 
at her, sounding his siren, slowing his motor to 
keep pace with the car, which now seemed but 
to crawl. 

Finally, above the clamor in her ears, his voice 
reached somehow to Mary Martha’s inner con¬ 
sciousness. 

“Stop, you fool! You’re pinched!” 

Mary Martha stopped the car. She looked 
back once, withering Vivien and Teddy with an 
awful glare, and then sank shivering behind the 
wheel. 


110 


RENDERING UNTO CAESAR 


“I wasn’t speeding,” she faltered. “You can’t 
speed in this.” 

“Well, who said you were?” he demanded 
rudely, settling his machine and going back to 
look at her number. 

“What’s your name?” he asked sharply, of 
Mr. McAllister. 

“McAllister, sir, the Reverend Mr. McAllister, 
of New Paris. I—” 

“Good lord, do you admit it?” gasped the of¬ 
ficer, in frank amazement. 

Mary Martha and her father looked at each 
other with solemn eyes. Admit it! Why not? 

“What’s your number?” asked the officer 
again. 

“Forty-seven thousand seven hundred seventy- 
nine,” said Mr. McAllister pleasantly, hoping to 
conciliate this temperamental representative of 
the law. 

The officer looked at his book, went to the back 
of the car and returned again, staring at the 
puzzled minister. 


Ill 


MERRY O 


“Say, what’s the idea? You give your right 
name, which you could deny if you wanted to, 
and then lie about your license number that any¬ 
body can read for themselves!” 

Such preposterously unreasonable conduct an¬ 
noyed him. 

Another telegraphic flash between Maiy 
Martha and her father. 

“Forty-seven thousand seven hundred seventy- 
nine,” she said softly. “You’re right, father, 
stick to it.” 

“I suppose now you’d like to deny that you 
stole Judge Fulton’s car and left it back there 
at Law’s garage, wouldn’t you? And that it’s 
the judge’s Colorado license you got on this boat 
here!” 

No McAllister could rally to this. They sat 
mute, awed and cold. 

“Oh, well, tell it to the judge. It’s none of 
my business. I got you, and I claim the reward. 
Though I must say you’re a slick one, shaving 
off your beard and making up for a preacher 

112 


RENDERING UNTO (UESAR 


with a Ford full of kids. Well, you’re due for the 
lock-up.” 

And then came sudden and dire illumination! 
Brother Dillson, on the express train, rushing 
east! 

“What—what am I wanted for—in particu¬ 
lar?” Mr. McAllister inquired mildly. 

“I suppose maybe you do get mixed up now 
and then between prayer-meetings and your other 
little jobs on the side. This time, it’s just high¬ 
way robbery and forgery, and a couple of as¬ 
saults for good measure. But the men ain’t 
dead yet, so after all you may not be a mur¬ 
derer.” 

“Listen, dear Mister Officer,” began Mary 
Martha placatingly. 

“You shut up,” he shouted. “You’re pinched, 
too,—the whole crowd’s pinched.” 

The officer briskly hand-cuffed the unresisting 
minister, looking through the car for concealed 
weapons, and then told Mary Martha to proceed 
slowly toward the county jail, and if she took 

113 


MERRY O 


her hands off the wheel he’d “pump her full of 
lead.” Tears coursed silently down Mary 
Martha’s pale cheeks, but she obeyed. 


i 


CHAPTER VII 


DIVINELY DRIVEN 

I T DID not add to the general dejection in the 
little car when Teddy leaned over the seat 
from behind and, weeping bitterly, whispered: 

“Oh, Merry O, it’s just because we laughed 
at you, and wouldn’t do as you said.—H—Have 
you got—the string with t—twenty knots?” 

Mary Martha shook her head, unable to con- 
trol her voice, and Teddy sank back in her seat, 
counting on her fingers as she murmured, 
gulping over every word, “Day by day, in every 
way, I’m getting better and better,” and then, on 
the third repetition, burst into noisy sobs and 
flung herself into Vivien’s lap in despair. 

Vivien, with the impervious pride of fifteen, 
cuddled Teddy in her arms and said bravely, 
“Well, they can’t hang us, that’s certain. It’s 
just what we get for going out in search of wild 

115 


MERRY O 


adventure. Goodness knows we found it. The 
next time, Merry O, you’d better go a little slower 
and not have the Infinite Supply crowd us too 
much all at once.” 

Mary Martha smiled then. “He was kind of 
nice, Mr. Dillson, though he was a highway rob¬ 
ber. I’m sure it was very good of him to give 
father twenty-five dollars. That shows he was 
ashamed of himself, anyhow.” 

Unfortunately, the judge had gone to Denver, 
and in his absence the best that could be done 
for the McAllisters was to clap them as comfort¬ 
ably as might be into a room in jail. And there, 
ignominiously, they remained until the early 
morning, when officers, flocking up from Denver 
to take charge of the family of criminal offenders, 
quickly recognized the error that had been made 
in their detention. 

They heard Mr. McAllister’s story, corrobo¬ 
rated by all the girls in turn, of their encounter 
with Brother Dillson, and for final verification, 
persuaded the entire family to drive back with 

116 


DIVINELY DRIVEN 


them to the scene of their encampment. If fur¬ 
ther proof were needed, it was supplied in plenty, 
even to finding shreds of the beard he had sacri¬ 
ficed to elude capture. It was plain that while 
tinkering with the machine, when the others were 
busily packing, he had exchanged the license num¬ 
bers of the two cars, hoping thereby to cause 
additional confusion and give him further time 
to make good his escape. Teddy’s innocent ac¬ 
count of the “cowboys” at the border, instantly 
recognized by him as officers set to guard the 
motor road into Nebraska, had verified his sus¬ 
picions in that direction. At the garage where he 
had left the car, the mechanics declared it was 
not Mr. McAllister who had left the stolen ma¬ 
chine with them, and further explained how Dill- 
son had given that name, claiming also the “three 
daughters” in the car, with whom he was on a 
summer tour of missionary work. 

By his heartless but clever machinations, aided 
as he was by the guileless innocence of the Mc¬ 
Allisters, “Brother Dillson” successfully made 

117 


MERRY O 


his escape, and was never heard from again in 
Colorado. 

Mary Martha grieved for him. “Crime,” she 
said, referring to the book for verification, “is 
only misdirected good. That’s New Thought. 
And, poor thing, if he is so dreadfully wicked this 
time, when he re-incarnates and comes to earth 
again, he’ll have to start in the same place and 
go through the same grief over again.—That’s 
Theosophy.—I’m sorry I didn’t give him the 
book, it might have done him lots of good. It’s 
very interesting, father, you’d better read it. I 
don’t think they teach it in the Methodist Church, 
so you probably don’t know much about it. And 
it’s awfully deep, too; perhaps you wouldn’t un¬ 
derstand it anyhow. But I do wish Mr. Dillson 
had a copy of The Key to Theosophy. If he just 
had to keep at it until he works off every last 
bit of his own deviltry maybe he’d go a little 
slower. I’m afraid maybe I let myself in for 
some bad Karma because I didn’t do anything 
for him.” 


118 


DIVINELY DRIVEN 


After this experience, the McAllisters desired 
nothing so much as to get away as quickly and as 
far as possible from the scene of their humilia¬ 
tion. Colorado, but a little while ago so beautiful, 
now was hateful to them. They felt themselves 
to be regarded on every hand with black sus¬ 
picion, and when people turned in the road to 
look curiously after the heavily loaded, dusty 
little Ford, as was not to be wondered at, they 
flushed with the guilty consciousness that they 
were the notorious McAllisters. On then, farther 
west, that the past might be forgotten. 

They found the roads in northeastern Colo¬ 
rado well made, and extensively traveled, 
leading in a hundred ways to different parks, 
summer resorts and mountain camps. They took 
the steep grades slowly, stopping on the highest 
passes for the inspiration of the view that always 
came to them. 

And thus, one day, they found themselves 
climbing, with the greatest difficulty it is true, 
a beautiful road near the Rocky Mountain Na- 

119 


MERRY O 


tional Park, narrow, steep, and winding with the 
curves of a riotous mountain river. The little 
Ford puffed and wheezed and boiled at the ter¬ 
rific strain to which it was subjected, hissed and 
died. Again and again the girls carried cans of 
water from the river below to pour over the hood 
and into the radiator. Again and again they drew 
off patiently beside the road, and let the motor 
rest and cool, glad by this means to gain a few 
additional yards before once more “the baby” 
gasped and died. 

Mary Martha turned wearily to her father. 
“Let’s camp. I’ve pulled this thing up, baby, 
baggage and the whole family, right on my raw 
nervous system the last three hours. I’m a wreck. 
Let’s camp.” 

A little later, after more heart-breaking effort, 
they came to a branching road which led off 
across the river by way of a rustic, wooden bridge, 
and disappeared beyond between high boulders 
of rock and a growth of pines. 

“Let’s cross the bridge,” said Mary Martha. 

120 



The girls carried water to pour over the hood and into the 

radiator 








DIVINELY DRIVEN 


“There’s got to be something there, and we shall 
never find a place to camp on this narrow river 
road.” 

They left the highway and crossed the bridge, 
passing slowly up the narrow glen among the 
great rocks and the fragrant pines, coming out 
at last in a sheltered nook designed for nothing 
else than camping. To< the right, higher up, they 
descried the outlines of an old abandoned cabin, 
and the girls ventured curiously up to investigate. 

It was a weather-beaten shack of shingles, 
blackened by rains and wind and burned by the 
sun, built high on the rocky bluff above the river. 
The door on the lower side stood open, hanging 
loose on a broken hinge, and entering, they found 
it to be little more than a cave, with a rock bottom 
floor, and the walls on three sides formed of 
the solid rock of the mountains. There was a 
stairway leading up, and as the place was ob¬ 
viously deserted, they felt no hesitancy about 
ascending. 

Above they found two rooms, roughly finished 

121 


MERRY O 


but giving on every side to the river, to the pines 
and to the mountains. There was an old table 
in one room, and a cupboard roughly home-made, 
with several rickety chairs. And in the other 
room, they found two cots, but with neither 
blankets nor mattresses. It was all very still, 
very beautiful, standing there desolate, webby 
and tumbly beside the mountain river. 

“We’ll camp right here,” decided Mary Martha 
quickly. “We’ll run the car over out of sight 
among the rocks, and carry the things up. It 
hasn’t been used for ages, and all the signs say 
this is a national forest reserve, so finders are 
certainly keepers.” 

With gay enthusiasm, in spite of their weari¬ 
ness, they put this brilliant plan at once into exe¬ 
cution by carrying up blankets, kerosene stove 
and box of supplies. But when Mary Martha 
attempted to start the car, she found it power¬ 
less beneath her touch. The motor flared up, 
puffed feebly a time or two, and then weakly 
died. 


122 


DIVINELY DRIVEN 


Mary Martha prodded, pushed and turned, to 
no avail. 

'Til follow the road up to the nearest house,” 
she said at last. “The road has to lead to some 
place. And if there’s a house, there’ll be a man, 
and almost any man knows how to persuade a 
Ford. You girls fix dinner while I’m gone, and 
I’ll get eggs and things if I can. But first of all 
we must find a man to fix the 'baby.’ ” 

Sadly, for she was very tired, but still gamely, 
Mary Martha trudged off up the road, hopeful 
of coming out upon a human habitation in spite 
of the fact that the trail she was on showed no 
evidence of recent usage. The road was like all 
others in the mountains, winding among high 
boulders, sometimes under heavy foliage, now 
directly over-top the noisy stream, now en¬ 
tirely beyond sight but within sound of its rush¬ 
ing, always turning, twisting and winding. And 
presently, quite without warning, Mary Martha, 
following it, stepped out from behind a steep 
rocky ledge into a bright clearing where a little 

123 


MERRY O 


gray stone cottage stood high and sturdy on the 
ridge, a cottage built on solid rock, between clus¬ 
tering boulders, and made of the same gray rock 
that surrounded it. 

Mary Martha cried out with delight, for it was 
by far the most lovely of all the lovely summer 
houses they had passed. 

As she stood between the high cliffs, weary but 
warmly admiring, a man in shirt-sleeves, bare¬ 
headed, leaped down the stone steps three at a 
time. 

“Run! Run!” he shouted. 

Mary Martha looked about in voiceless terror. 
There was no ferocious mountain beast, no poi¬ 
sonous reptile within sight, but she trembled at 
thought of some unseen, unsuspected danger lurk¬ 
ing near. The young man had not waited. He 
ran down the road with great strides, and caught 
her hand. 

“Run!” he cried again, and dashed back once 
more to the gray cottage, dragging the terrified 
girl with him. 


124 


DIVINELY DRIVEN 


“Wait,” she gasped, reaching instinctively for 
her flying curls. 

“Hurry! You can’t wait!” said the surprising 
young man, in a low intense voice. “Quick! I 
think he’s dying.” 

Then they were within the door of the cottage, 
and the young man was pulling her after him up 
the stairs. On the upper landing he paused, and 
stood listening. There was a great silence all 
about them, and from without only a faint mur¬ 
mur of the wild little river dashing in its canyon 
bed. 

“M—m—m—maybe he’s d—d—dead,” fal¬ 
tered Mary Martha, with chattering teeth. 

“Sh! Listen!” He tiptoed softly down the 
hall and stopped again outside a door, listening 
intently. 

Mary Martha followed close after, determined 
not to be left alone in this ghastly, gruesome 

place. 

He turned the knob of the door. It did not 

open. 

125 


MERRY O 


“He’s not dead,” he said, with obvious relief. 
“He locked the door after me.” 

He knocked softly, and then more loudly. 
There was no answer from within. 

“Uncle Bob!” he called in a gentle voice. 
“Uncle Bob!” 

“That you, Steve?” came faintly from behind 
the locked door. 

“Yes. Throw me the key.” 

There was silence for a little. 

“Folks back yet?” queried the voice again. 
“Not yet. Throw me the key, Unc.” 

“Steve,” the voice was very feeble, “I can’t. 
I can’t even see the transom. Come up the win¬ 
dow.” 

“Wait here,” Steve said to Mary Martha, and 
turning, ran quickly down the stairs. 

“I won’t,” wailed Mary Martha. “Don’t leave 
me,” and trotted after him as fast as she could, 
considering the curious trembling in her knees. 
He ran through the cottage and out at the back, 
Mary Martha after him, but before she was fairly 

126 

/ 


DIVINELY DRIVEN 


outside, he was working his way straight up the 
steep rocky bank, clinging to jutting bits of stone 
and climbing vines. 

“You can’t come this way,” he called down to 
her. “Go back. I’ll unlock the door for you.” 

She stood below, watching anxiously until he 
safely reached the top, stepped quickly across the 
narrow intervening ledge of rock, and climbed 
over the sill of the window with great dexterity. 
Then she trailed dejectedly back into the strange * 
stone cottage. He met her at the foot of the 
stairs and led her up once more. 

As she entered the room at the end of the hall, 
she caught one glimpse of a thin gray face on 
the bed, a straggling gray beard, a pair of pierc¬ 
ing gray eyes,—one glimpse, and the gray face 
slipped out of sight beneath the covers of the 
bed. 

“Stop him! Catch him!” gasped Mary Martha. 

The young man reassured her. “That’s all 
right. He just doesn’t like being looked at. He 
often slides under that way. It’s quite all right.” 

127 


MERRY O 


As suddenly as it had vanished, the gray face 
rose again. 

“Lock the door, Steve,” whispered the old man 
hoarsely, moistening his thin gray lips, and would 
have disappeared again, but Mary Martha caught 
his shoulder. 

“Wait,” she begged. “What is the matter? 
What is it that you want me to do! How 
can I help you, if you stay beneath the 
covers?” 

Arrested in his intention, he gazed at her 
stolidly and shook his head, the gray eyes almost 
defiant, as though it were none of his business 
what she did, and let her find out for herself 
what he needed. 

Having locked the door from within, Steve 
came back to the bedside. “He’s awfully sick,” 
he explained. “He has terrible pains after his 
meals, and clutches at his heart, and goes white 
and blue. He had a fainting spell a few minutes 
ago when I came after you. He went limp and 
cold and—” 


128 


DIVINELY DRIVEN 


Mary Martha took the thin gray hand in hers 
and tried to count the pulse. 

“Get a lemon and some soda. Hurry up.” Mary 
Martha in action was always curt. 

Steve was only too happy to carry out orders 
from any! one in authority. 

“Leave that door unlocked,” she called, as he 
started away. “I don't want to stay locked in 
here with you two—” 

“We’re not mad, if that’s what you mean,” he 
called back to her from the stairway. 

It was certainly what Mary Martha had meant, 
but she was glad that she had been spared the 
word. 

She loosened the collar of his night-shirt, but¬ 
toned tightly at the old man’s throat, and relieved 
the pressure of the blankets above him. 

“Everything loose, that is the rule,” she said 
briskly. 

She took the lemon and soda from Steve. “Get 
a hot water bottle, real hot, two or three if you 
have them. His circulation’s bad. Bring a bowl 

129 


MERRY O 


or something—he’s likely to be a little—er—sea¬ 
sick pretty soon.” 

While he was gone, Mary Martha squeezed 
the juice from the lemon into a glass and stirred 
in a generous portion of soda. By the time she 
had it ready, her patient was far below cover and 
snoring aloud, in a futile effort to efface himself 
from public attention. 

‘Tull him out,” commanded Mary Martha, 
when Steve returned with the bottles. 

But hearing the order, the old man desisted 
from the idle snoring and dragged himself up 
on his pillows. To her surprise, he drank the 
soda without an objecting word, and then, with 
the bottles at his feet, Mary Martha and Steve, 
on opposite sides of the bed, set to rubbing his 
.wrists with brisk energy. 

“You ought to keep hypodermic needles and 
things in the house with a heart like that,” Mary 
Martha said, chattily. “Unless you are scientific 
enough to follow the deeper lines of Mental Sci¬ 
ence or New Thought, or something. And I 

130 


DIVINELY DRIVEN 


don’t suppose you are. What’s he been eating, 
anyhow?” 

'‘Nothing in the world but raw eggs and milk 
for days and days,” Steve complained, taking it 
as a personal affront that any one should suffer 
on a diet so modest. "It’s all he eats, fresh milk 
and fresh eggs, but he’s upset all the time. They 
say he won’t last through the summer.” 

<r No wonder he’s upset. Who says that? 
Your doctor?” 

"He won’t have a doctor. The last one he 
had—I wasn’t here, it was while I was in school, 
—he left two bottles for Unc, one of medicine 
for him to take, and the other alcohol to rub 
him with. You know they put something in the 
alcohol now so you can’t use it for pleasure. 
And somebody gave Unc the alcohol to drink and 
rubbed him with the medicine, and he nearly died. 
He thinks they did it on purpose. He won’t have 
a doctor any more.” 

Mary Martha looked across at Steve, and 
smiled a little to herself. He was good to look 

131 


MERRY O 


upon. Tall, slender and brown, be was, with 
gray eyes something like those on the bed, kindly 
and worried, with muscular bare brown arms and 
strong thin hands. Mary Martha smiled again. 
Since Divine Love had chosen thus to draw her 
with physical force into the little stone cottage 
beside the river, it was at least interesting to 
remark that there was a Steve at hand. 

The old man on the bed spoke suddenly, and 
his thin sharp voice increased the impression she 
had of him, which was altogether gray and gaunt. 

"Who got you?’’ 

"He got me.” She nodded toward Steve. 

"Where’d you get her ?” 

"Down the road.” 

The three of them looked on one another 
curiously. 

"How’d you come in the road?” 

"You’re a nurse, aren’t you?” 

"Who sent you?” 

The gray old man turned to his nephew. 
"Steve, ask her if she is alone. We can’t have 

132 


DIVINELY DRIVEN 


any more flesh and blood relations around here. 
Ask if she is all by herself?” 

Steve looked inquiringly at Mary Martha, who 
flushed a little. She answered promptly, but 
rather weakly. 

“I —I am alone. Of course I am alone.—Oh, 
I have a family, you understand, but—but it is 
not right with me. You—you won’t be bothered 
with my flesh and blood relations, I assure you.” 
Mary Martha consoled herself that this was 
strictly true. While she was in the little stone 
cottage, and they were down the road in the 
brown shingled shack,—of course they were not 
with her. “I—I am quite by myself.” 

The old man nodded with relief. “That’s good. 
Strangers are more satisfactory—any way you 
take it. Especially in an emergency. Seems to 
me I couldn’t stand any more Flesh-and-Bloods 
—right now.” 

Steve took up the interrogation, as his uncle 
seemed to feel that everything necessary now was 
known and settled. 


133 


MERRY O 


“Where did you come from?” 

“I came from New Paris, Iowa,” she an¬ 
nounced brightly. 

“New Paris, Iowa,” he repeated vaguely. “I 
don’t think I ever heard of it.” 

“No, I don’t suppose you ever did. It’s really 
not so much a place as a—a state of mind, you 
know,” she explained. 

“I knew at once you were a nurse,” he said. 
“Which of them sent you up?” 

Mary Martha lowered her long lashes reflec¬ 
tively, and then replied, with a great appearance 
of candor. “Nobody sent me. I am not a nurse 
—not really—a trained nurse, that is, but of 
course I know all about nursing in a practical, 
sensible way, especially along the lines of auto¬ 
suggestion and mental science and divine healing, 
I really specialize in those. I—I was just looking 
for a position—and—” 

“You’ve got one,” interrupted the old man, and 
then, abashed at his suddenness of decision, slid 
beneath the covers. 


134 


DIVINELY DRIVEN 


“He likes you,” said Steve, smiling warmly at 
her. “We’ll pay forty a week. That’s what they 
said they’d have to pay, and room and board, 
of course.” 

Mary Martha clutched her golden head and 
tried to still the joyous tumult in her breast. 
“How—how long will it last?” she asked, in as 
professional a tone as she could muster. 

“Until—until—” Steve hesitated. 

“Until I die,” announced the old man sharply, 
appearing again on the pillow. “And, Steve, 
you’d better pay her in advance before they get 
home with theirs ” he suggested. “In my pants 
pocket.” Again he disappeared. 

Steve went at once to the closet and from a 
trousers pocket drew forth a well-worn wallet. 
From this he counted out forty dollars in bills, 
and laid them in Mary Martha’s itching palm. 
As he went back to return the wallet, Mary 
Martha bent ecstatically over the bed, on which 
only the thin outline of the old man’s figure be¬ 
neath the coverlet was visible. 

135 


MERRY O 


“Oh, Mister Bob, your chances of making 
heaven are mighty slim right now, with Mary 
Martha drawing forty per,” she whispered exult- 
ingly, and clasped her hand fearfully over her 
tell-tale lips as the sharp gray eyes rose suddenly 
above the line of the blanket, staring into her 
frightened blue ones above. 

From below, there was a sound of a motor 
drawing noisily up the steep road toward the 
house. 

“Lock the door, the door, Steve, quick,” cried 
the old man in a voice of panic. “Here they 


come. 


CHAPTER VIII 


INTRODUCING KARMA 

M ARY MARTHA caught Steve’s hand and 
clung to it, her knees sagging weakly, her 
teeth chattering, a bundle of nerves too tightly 
strung. She wondered desperately if this were 
really she, if these ridiculous things were truly 
happening, if that good-looking man at her side 
called “Steve” was more than a creature of her 
foolish fancy, and if that thin outline beneath 
the blanket could be a human being in solemn 
truth. 

From the hallway came a sound of heavy tip¬ 
toeing footsteps, and hoarsely whispering voices. 

“Wh—wh—what is it?” stammered Mary 
Martha. 

“Sh,” was the hissed warning from Steve. 
There was a light knock on the door, but no 
answer from those within. 

137 


MERRY O 


“What is it, oh, what is it?” pleaded Mary 
Martha. 

“It’s the Flesh-and-Bloods,” came in sepulchral 
tones from beneath the blanket. 

“It’s Cousin Ben,” explained Steve. 

There was a louder knock, and then a low call. 

“Steve, oh, Steve!” 

The door-knob turned, in vain. 

Steve creaked heavily across to the door, but 
did not open it. “Go away,” he said. “Uncle 
Bob is worse. Don’t disturb him.” 

“I got him a nurse,” came hoarsely from with¬ 
out. 

“Too late. He’s already got a nurse. She’s 
in charge, and she won’t let any one in under any 
circumstances.” 

There was a confusion of whispers without, 
indicative of sudden consternation. Then again, 
“You can’t do that. I got him a nurse myself. 
She’s here. Open the door, and let her in.” 

“Sorry. Uncle Bob’s already hired a nurse, 
and paid her in advance. If you keep your nurse 

138 


INTRODUCING KARMA 


here, you have to keep her out of this room and 
pay her yourself.” 

Uncle Bob emerged from the blanket, and his 
gray eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “That’ll 
fetch ’em, that's a knocker,” he muttered. 

And indeed it proved to be just that. “Let 
me in a minute,” urged the voice. “I got an 
awful good nurse. Let him look at her any¬ 
how. Maybe he’ll like her better than the one 
he’s got.” 

“It’s too late. He’s already hired this one.” 

“This is an outrage,” suddenly stormed in a 
strong woman-voice. “I claim a full day’s pay, 
and you’ve got to take me back to town in the 
auto.” 

The footsteps and the warmly argumentative 
voices receded, and a little later they heard the 
motor again, and Steve from the window re¬ 
ported that the first enemy was in retreat. 

“That’s just one of ’em, though,” mourned 
Uncle Bob bitterly from beneath the blankets. 

“Will you please explain— Will you kindly tell 

139 


MERRY O 


me— Will you— What does this mean anyhow ? 
What’s going on here? What’s the matter with 
him?” indicating the blanketed outline, which 
slowly heaved upward until the gray face ap¬ 
peared. 

“Me? I’m dying. That’s the only thing they 
agree on.” 

“That’s an awfully silly thing to say,” said 
Mary Martha. “Anybody that can shoot himself 
up and down under those heavy blankets the way 
you do, is certainly in no position to claim a 
pair of wings.” 

Uncle Bob, with a deprecating grin, slid sheep¬ 
ishly from sight, and Mary Martha turned to 
Steve. 

The story, as he told it, was one of countless 
complications, but after many questions on her 
part, and detailed explanations on his, with a 
generous application of her always vivid imagi¬ 
nation, the situation, as she came to understand it, 
was something like this. 

Steve himself, an orphan, had lived from 

140 


INTRODUCING KARMA 


childhood with his Uncle Bob, and the two had 
always been inseparable. In winter they moved 
down to Denver where Steve went to school, but 
in the summer they came up to the mountains 
for the hunting and fishing that they both loved. 
Steve had gone to college, and finishing that, en¬ 
tered the School of Mines, at Golden, in which 
he had but one more year before graduation. 

For the last two years, his uncle, instead of 
going down to the city, had remained in his 
mountain camp, attended solely by a faithful old 
negro servant who had been with them from the 
time of Steve’s earliest remembrance, but whose 
last name he had never even heard, knowing him 
simply as “Hezekiah.” Uncle Bob was by this 
time subject to these terrible “spells” of indiges¬ 
tion with the usual disastrous effects upon his 
heart. 

Early in the spring of this year, while Steve 
was still in school, Uncle Bob had suffered 
an attack more severe than ever before, lying in 
a state of unconsciousness for two days. Steve 

141 


MERRY O 


had not been notified of this, and when school 
was out, according to prearranged plans, had gone 
on a two-weeks trip to the coast with some 
friends. After that, coming up to the camp as 
usual for the summer, he was shocked to find his 
uncle confined to bed, prepared for death at any 
moment. In a sullen rage at outside interference, 
Hezekiah had left the camp some weeks before 
and the household was under the disastrous man¬ 
agement of four uncongenial “flesh and blood re¬ 
lations,” representing four different branches of 
the family tree. 

Cousin Ben, who had just gone to return his 
nurse to the city, was one of these. Another was 
Aunt Tilly, who had set off that morning alone 
in Steve’s roadster for a nurse of her selection. 
Then there was Uncle Penny Martin, who had 
taken the stage to town, determined personally to 
supervise the choice of the one who was to com¬ 
fort poor old Bob in his last days on earth. The 
fourth of the kinsman’s quartette was Miss Kezzy 
Lane, of somewhat doubtful connection but de- 

142 


INTRODUCING KARMA 


termined loyalty, who, scorning all motors as con¬ 
trivances of the devil, had walked three miles to 
a neighbor with a horse and buggy, to get him 
to take her in search of a proper nurse for the 
plainly dying man. 

“Well, of all the nonsense!” cried Mary 
Martha, when these details had assembled them¬ 
selves in her mind into some sort of coherence. 
“I never heard anything so silly! Why should 
they all go tearing off to fetch a nurse? Why 
not send one,, and leave the rest here to take care 
of him? Why should they all be so anxious to 
do the selecting, anyhow? And why—” 

Uncle Bob appeared with his usual startling 
suddenness. “Reason enough,” he snapped. “The 
one that hires the nurse gets to boss the job.” 

Mary Martha smiled across the bed at Steve. 
“Then you’re my boss, I suppose,” she said 
amiably. 

“Yes, sure,” he assented, and took pleasure in 
the prospect. 

Mary Martha considered the outline on the 

143 


MERRY O 


bed, reflectively. “I don’t believe he’s dying at all,” 
she said with decision. “I used to go to see all 
the dying people in the church—I don’t mean 
they died in the church, I mean the dying mem¬ 
bers—and I never saw one that acted as he 
does.” 

“This is the first I’ve been alone with him. The 
others tag me around every step I take, and 
whenever I come here, they follow me. As soon 
as we all get out, Uncle Bob locks the door on us. 
They say he’s out of his head. He’s been wanting 
to get a lawyer up to make his will, and they 
won’t let him. They say he isn’t responsible, and 
they’ll all swear to it.” He looked at Mary 
Martha resentfully, as though the charge were 
her own. “He’s not out of his head. Not by a 
long shot. You won’t blame him for trying 
to keep that gang out, when you get to know 
them.” 

“Certainly, he’s no more out of his head than— 
than you are,” agreed Mary Martha, who was 
half inclined to think they both were. “It seems 

144 


INTRODUCING KARMA 


very strange they won’t let him make a will if 
they’re so sure he’s dying. Most people want 
them to make their wills before they die.” 

Again the gray face on the pillow. “Reason 
enough,” he declared. “If I die without a will, all 
the Flesh-and-Bloods come in for equal shares. 
But if I get that will made, they’re goners, and 
they know it. Serves me right, because I didn’t 
do it years ago.” 

The long wail of a siren announced the stop¬ 
ping of the motor-bus down by the branching 
of the road. 

“They’re coming!” gasped the old man ner¬ 
vously, scurrying out of sight. “Lock the door— 
the—” 

“It’s locked,” said Mary Martha soothingly. 
“You mustn’t get so excited. It’s very bad for 
you. Mr. Steve and I won’t let them in.” 

Again the trio waited in silence for the sig¬ 
naling knock upon the door. 

Uncle Penny Martin and his personally se¬ 
lected nurse were routed pretty much along the 

145 


MERRY O 


general line of the campaign just preceding. And 
while they were quarreling, down-stairs, as to 
the proper amount of compensation due the dis¬ 
gruntled one for “this humiliation and needless 
waste of priceless time,’’ as she so aptly put it, 
Aunt Tilly drove grandly up in Steve’s smart 
roadster with the nurse she had obtained. 

She, more aggressive than her predecessors, 
attempted to storm the citadel by force. But 
from behind the locked door, Steve and Mary 
Martha, with Uncle Bob sometimes blanketed, 
sometimes visible, but always urging them to 
stem resistance, successfully parried the attack. 
A nurse was in charge, she had been paid in 
advance, and her orders were to keep everybody 
out. 

“One thing is certain,” said Mary Martha when 
Aunt Tilly at last withdrew. “If you haven’t 
got a doctor, I am in full authority, and every¬ 
body’s got to do as I say. That’s the law. And 
my order is, keep that whole crazy bunch out of 
this room if you have to use a gun. The first one 

146 


INTRODUCING KARMA 


that enters that door without my permission, Mr. 
Steve, you’ve got to fire clear out of the house, 
and keep ’em out.” 

“Why me?” he demanded. “What can I do 
with that crowd? It’s an awful bunch to do any¬ 
thing with. They sweep everything right before 
them.” 

“You’re very strong, you can use force if you 
have to,” she said recklessly. “It’s orders, any¬ 
how. And I think,” she added more reasonably, 
“that we can effect our purpose by the use of a 
firm unflinching will.—That’s Mental Science.— 
I can show you in the book if you don’t believe 
it. You can do anything, if you set your mind 
on it hard enough.—Anyhow, they’re out, and 
out they stay. You’re the boss, now you see that 
they do it.” 

“Raise her salary,” ordered the old man from 
the blankets. “She’s worth ten a week more than 
I thought she was.” 

Mary Mardia drew a chair close beside the 
bed, and fishing about beneath the covers, found 

147 


MERRY O 


at last his clammy bony hand, and drew it within 
the clasp of her warm strong fingers. 

“Listen, dear Uncle Bob,” she said gently. 
“You’ve got to have harmony, peace and love. 
You’ve developed up to the point where you re¬ 
quire it, and when you develop up to a thing 
you’ve got to have it. There’s no getting around 
that. It’s the Law of Karma.—That’s Theos¬ 
ophy; you probably never heard of it, but I can 
show you the book if you don’t believe it.—The 
Law of Karma. It never fails. It means you 
get just what you deserve, and as soon as you 
deserve something better, you get something 
better.” 

Uncle Bob fixed her with a steady sharp gray 
eye. 

“Does it hit everybody, or just me,—Karma?” 
he asked meekly. 

“Everybody in the world. It’s like the law of 
the Medes and Persians. You can’t get around 
it. As you sow, you’ve got to reap, sooner or 
later. You see, it’s in the Bible as well as Theos- 

148 


INTRODUCING KARMA 


ophy, so you can be orthodox if you prefer. It’s 
the same thing, either way.” 

He raised himself a little, ready to dive from 
sight. “I’d hate like fury to have the Karma 
coming to me that some folks has,” he said, as he 
disappeared. 


CHAPTER IX 


HEALING HASH 

M ARY MARTHA knew that eventually she 
must go down and confront the resentful 
Flesh-and-Bloods. She put it off as long as pos¬ 
sible. She felt quite satisfied there in the room 
with Uncle Rob and Steve, but the necessities of 
her new profession were impelling. Her patient 
had had nothing to eat since early morning. He 
must be fed. 

“I have to do it, so I may as well get it over 
with at once/’ she said dolefully to Steve. “Of 
course, you are coming along.” 

She was not received with much favor. 
“Don’t you wear a uniform?” asked Aunt Tilly 
suspiciously, noting the lovely heap of golden 
curls and the pretty curves of throat and arms 
displayed by the summer blouse. 

150 


HEALING HASH 


Mary Martha smiled disarmingly. “Oh, no, 
indeed,” she said. “I belong to the new school 
of—of Theotherapy. We try to eliminate every 
suggestion of illness, and hospitals, and drugs. 
Those are unhealthy thought-forms, and must be 
banished. We try to convey only images of per¬ 
fect health and happiness. No uniforms!” 

The silence that greeted this avowal was 
frankly unfriendly. 

“All the books agree on that,” she added 
quickly. “From Mental Science to Auto-Sugges¬ 
tion. The first rule is to banish every picture of 
sickness and fear, and to cultivate an image of 
perfect health. I can show you in half a dozen 
different methods, if you don't believe it.” 

“She’s too pretty,” said Uncle Penny suddenly. 
“Like as not the old fool’ll fall in love with her. 
I’m not in favor of her on any terms.” 

“Neither am I,” agreed Cousin Ben. “She’s 
got them newfangled notions that I never did 
see any sense to.” 

“I’m sorry I sent Miss Smith back,” said Aunt 

151 


MERRY O 


Tilly. “I think we’d better make a change. What 
we need is a woman of strong religious principle, 
to prepare poor Bob for the future.” 

Mary Martha looked at Steve, seeking and 
finding reassurance in his sober friendly face. 

“I’m sorry you don’t like me,” she said gently. 
“Because I am employed, and Mr. Bob has given 
me entire control of the situation. So I am going 
to stay, and I am afraid you’ll have to do as I 
tell you whether you like me or not. Isn’t that 
the way of things, Mr. Steve?” 

Steve nodded quick affirmation. “That’s it.” 

To their mutual surprise, her defiance, far 
from adding to the relatives’ dislike of her, 
effected a speedy transformation in their conduct. 
Resentment gave place to a great eagerness to 
please her,—an attitude more baffling to Mary 
Martha and Steve than their former one of dis¬ 
approval had been. 

“She’s quick, anyhow, and she don’t look lazy, 
that’s one thing,” said Cousin Ben. “The nurse 
we had for Matty sat right down in a rocker, and 

152 


HEALING HASH 


kept the whole passel of us waiting on her from 
morning till night.” 

“I can’t say as I blame Bob,” commented 
Uncle Penny judicially. “If you’ve got to have 
a woman tinkerin’ around, nobody wants an old 
hatchet-face, like some.” 

“As soon as I saw you, my dear,” said Aunt 
Tilly, “I said to myself, ‘She’s young, but she’s 
got a sweet kind face.’ You come up to my room 
when you finish your work, and I’ll give you some 
tracts to read to poor Bob.” 

Mary Martha as she went to work was com¬ 
placently gratified at her success in winning over 
these three combatants. She attributed the happy 
result entirely to the fact that she was in tune with 
the infinite, and rejoiced that she had attained 
such harmony of vibration. When, later on, she 
said she would like some one to kill and dress a 
chicken, that she might make a strengthening 
broth for her patient, Uncle Penny was on his 
way before she finished her request. She had no 
more than glanced at the kitchen stove, when 

153 


MERRY O 


Cousin Ben grabbed the poker and shovel, and be¬ 
stowed his undivided attentions on the fire for 
twenty feverish minutes. Aunt Tilly hastened to 
produce fresh eggs and milk from the ice-chest, 
and when Mary Martha waved them away with 
great decision, the astonished Aunt Tilly vented 
her dismay in only one great sigh. 

Meanwhile, Mary Martha foraged about in 
the ice-chest, and finding there a generous T-bone 
steak, designed for the family consumption, she 
deftly cut the heart out of it and broiled it over 
the fire. 

She was interrupted once. ‘Til just look in on 
poor Bob, and have a word of prayer with him,” 
said Aunt Tilly pleasantly. “Where is the key, 
my dear?” 

“It is in my pocket,” said Mary Martha gently. 
“It is going to stay there. Mr. Steve—” 

Steve, thus appealed to, came gallantly to her 
assistance. “The nurse and Uncle Bob have 
agreed that for a while at least, he must have ab¬ 
solute quiet. No one is to enter that room 

154 


HEALING HASH 


or even to speak to Uncle Bob from the hall, 
without the nurse’s express permission. He’s got 
to be let alone. And the first one that disobeys 
orders, will have to go home.” 

Aunt Tilly, Cousin Ben and Uncle Penny clus¬ 
tered together, with gurgles of feeble remon¬ 
strance. 

“What—how—why—” 

“Nurse’s orders,” he said succinctly. “And 
Uncle Bob told me to carry them out.” 

Steve’s eyes narrowed slowly, and his pleasant 
lips lowered in an ominous fashion, while the 
muscles drew up in little hunches on his fore¬ 
arms. 

“I never refused anything Uncle Bob asked 
yet,” he went on slowly. “And Pm not beginning 
now. The first one that tries to get in there, has 
lost a summer camp.” 

Mary Martha bent joyously over the steak, de¬ 
lighting in his quiet unflinching force. She could 
not resist a light commending touch on his hand 
as he came to help her with the tray, and again 

155 


V 


MERRY O 

their eyes met, gray and blue, with quick 
camaraderie. 

The tray she carried up to the sick room a little 
later was Mary Martha’s best effort. There was 
a small, exquisitely browned bit of steak, gener¬ 
ously buttered, two thin squares of crispest, 
brownest toast, half a dozen great red straw¬ 
berries faintly sprinkled with sugar, and a cup 
of fragrant coffee with pure country cream. Even 
Mary Martha sniffed its aroma hungrily as she 
carried it up the stairs. 

When she entered the room, she smiled to see 
the last gray hair disappearing from the pillow. 

“I decided I won’t eat,” he mumbled crossly, 
from under the blanket. “When I think of an 
egg, I nearly crow. Go away, I’m awful sick.” 

Mary Martha laughed. “You trot up here and 
eat this steak while it is hot,” she commanded. 
“Don’t worry about eggs until I bring you one.” 

With pitiful eagerness, the gray head at once 
appeared. His eyes swept quickly across the tray, 
and his face brightened, but he sighed. 

156 


HEALING HASH 


“I can’t,” he said. “It’ll kill me. I can’t digest 
things.” 

Mary Martha adjusted his pillows behind him, 
and tucked a towel beneath his hand. 

“Now listen,” she said, as he thrust a fork 
hopefully, fearfully, hungrily into the piece of 
steak. “You must trust me. You are dreadfully 
undernourished, and you’ve got to be fed, and 
well fed. That is, properly fed. This is proper 
feeding. It is the very exactly right kind of a 
meal for—what you’ve got. I—I worked for a 
while in a—in a medical house, and I learned the 
doctor book by heart, especially the worst dis¬ 
eases. This is just what you need, it will do you 
good, you will digest it perfectly, and feel much 
better after you have eaten.” 

He placed a bit of steak happily between his 
teeth. 

“It’s Auto-Suggestion,” she said. “Just let 
your Unconscious believe it, and it’s bound to 
work.” 

She sat quietly beside him, enjoying his child- 

157 


MERRY O 


like pleasure in the dainty meal, her red lips 
clenched tightly together with the fervor by which 
she was willing, and wishing, and vibrating 
Strength to him. 

“I was hungry,” he said, when he had finished 
the last crumb. “I can eat some more, I think.” 

She shook her head. “Pm sorry. Not yet. 
Just a little at a time, and often. That is the 
rule until you are stronger.” 

“I’ll never be any stronger, Pm—” 

“You must never argue with your nurse. Ac¬ 
cording to all the methods in all the books, you 
are certainly going to get well. I suppose we 
ought to decide on one kind of cure, and then 
stick to it. For myself, I am very impartial, and 
I use them all in turn, just as I need them. But 
if you have any favorite, I’ll cure you any way 
you like,” she offered, with sweeping generosity. 

He admitted that he had no choice, and was 
more than willing to be cured by any method she 
preferred. 

“Well, then, Pll tell you what,” she decided. 

158 


HEALING HASH 


“As far as I can figure out, they’re all very good. 
So I think if we work them in together, perhaps 
you will get well faster. The only thing you have 
to do is to believe that—that”—she hesitated 
shyly over the words—“that Divine Love always 
has met and always will meet every human need. 
—That’s Christian Science.—Then very often, 
every day, you must take a few deep breaths, and 
as you breathe in you must be conscious that you 
are breathing in the very essence of God, who is 
our infinite source of strength and health.—That’s 
New Thought.—I won’t have you do Auto-Sug¬ 
gestion for yourself just yet, I’ll do it for you 
when you are asleep.—Do you dream?” 

“Dream?” 

“Yes, when you are asleep. Whenever you 
dream, you must be sure to tell me, and I will 
try to figure out what kind of a complex you 
have. That’s very important.—It’s Psycho- 
Analysis.—It’s rather complicated, and some 
parts of it I am afraid—are not just-^exactly 
proper, but the main thing is to dream, and if 

159 



MERRY O 


you don’t dream, you can make them up and it 
is just as good.” 

“I feel sleepy now,” he said. “If I dream any¬ 
thing, I will tell you.” 

She darkened the room a little and opened the 
windows wide. 

“If you’re going down, be sure to lock that 
door,” he cautioned anxiously. 

She went out softly and locked the door behind 
her. Down-stairs she sought Steve. 

“W—will you sell me things—fresh eggs, and 
milk, and sometimes vegetables?” she asked. 

“Why, you are to eat with us,” he told her 
quickly. 

“I know, but—oh, there are lots of things one 
can do with milk and eggs, you know. I will 
pay for them. I want to—take them with me— 
in a basket. I must go for exercise regularly.” 

“Yes, of course.” 

Steve was very quiet, and his gray eyes were 
a little questioning as he filled a basket with eggs 
and milk and fruit. 


160 




HEALING HASH 


“I will be back very soon. You keep the key 
while I am gone, but he is going to sleep now.” 

Steve stood in the doorway of the little stone 
cottage, following her with his eyes as she walked 
quickly down the road in the direction from 
which she had come only a few hours before. 


CHAPTER X 


SCIENCE AND HEALTH 

I N THE shingled shack down the road, there 
was increasing uneasiness over Mary 
Martha’s unaccountable absence. 

“Though there’s not a bit of use to worry,” 
declared Vivien. “You know Mary Martha. If 
a Zulu magician came along in an airship and 
invited her to go to China, she’d think it was a 
divine opportunity, and off she’d go. We may as 
well eat.” 

So they had their dinner, and the girls washed 
the dishes. Still no Merry O! They wandered 
anxiously about on the banks of the river, and 
were planning to set off in a body in pursuit of 
her, when she and her basket appeared* at last. 
She found a thrilled and inspiring audience for 
the strange story she had to tell, and she did it 
justice. 


162 


SCIENCE AND HEALTH 


“I never saw any one so opposed to flesh and 
blood relations,” she said in conclusion. “And 
when I saw how much it would help my chances 
to be without a family, I just washed my hands 
of the whole bunch of you right away. But never 
mind. Vivien can run the camp, and you'll be 
here, and I’ll be there, and I’ll come and call on 
you every day. Think of Fifty Dollars a 
Week!” 

There was no fear of their discovery from the 
stone cottage, as there was a newer, shorter road 
to the highway, crossing the river by means of 
another bridge higher up, so that this trail which 
had brought them to the shingled shack was no 
longer in use. They did not wonder who owned 
the shingled shack, they did not care, it was 
enough for them that it was there, that it had 
been abandoned, and that it suited their purpose 
charmingly. On several trees roundabout were 
posted newly printed announcements that this was 
a part of the National Forest Reserve, and was 
subject to national laws. 

163 


MERRY O 


As the “baby” still refused to run, they pushed 
it out of the road among the high boulders, and 
carried the rest of their supplies from the car 
to the shingled shack. Teddy and Vivien, and 
their father as well, anticipated a delightful vaca¬ 
tion in the heart of the great mountains on the 
banks of the clamorous river; while over all their 
plans and hopes played the rosy light of Fifty 
Dollars a Week. Mary Martha was able to si¬ 
lence her father’s concern for her safety among 
the curious folk in the cottage, by assuring him 
that any one could see to look at them that they 
were dreadfully respectable, and very religious, 
always reading tracts and quoting Scriptures, and 
that Aunt Tilly asked a very long blessing before 
she would eat a bite. 

What harm could come to Merry O in that 
environment ? 

So she packed her clothes in the smallest of 
the three bags, and took with her, as service 
equipment, her books on New Thought, Theos¬ 
ophy, Auto-Suggestion, Science Both Mental 

164 


SCIENCE AND HEALTH 


and Christian, and even Psychic Powers and 
How to Develop Them. She gave Vivien mi¬ 
nute instructions how the camp should be con¬ 
ducted, and kissing them all a fond good-by went 
happily back to her lucrative, amusing, divinely 
demonstrated position in the gray stone cot¬ 
tage. 

During her absence Miss Kezzy had returned 
from the city, and after the first shock of an¬ 
noyance, of amazement, and of discomfiture, 
had hastily despatched the nurse she brought 
back to the city by way of the stage. After 
which, she settled herself in the stiffest chair in 
the dining-room, and waited to pass judgment on 
Mary Martha, who, appearing in her presence, 
amiably submitted to inspection, revolving slowly 
at her request and then sat down with her per¬ 
mission. 

Miss Kezzy then inquired stiffly as to her 
age, experience, religious affiliations, moral stand¬ 
ards in general, and in conclusion wished to know 
if it didn’t make her nervous to be shut up in a 

165 


MERRY O 


room with a half, if not wholly, demented old 
man who was likely to die on her hands any min¬ 
ute. 

Having proceeded faithfully through this 
catechism Mary Martha ran quickly up to Uncle 
Bob, whom she found, as she expected, entirely 
buried beneath the blankets. At her solicitation 
he ventured slowly out. 

“You look just fine,” she said warmly. “You 
feel lots better already, just as I told you. Don’t 
you?” 

He admitted, almost reluctantly, that he felt 
pretty tolerable, but was still hungry, and was 
not at all patient about waiting for her to pre¬ 
pare his supper. This consisted of a creamy 
baked potato, a bowl of steaming chicken broth, 
with a very stingy portion of the white meat, 
and more of the crisp buttered toast. 

“No pains if I eat it?” he asked anxiously. 

“Never a single pain,” she assured him con¬ 
fidently. “It is good food, well cooked. It is 
just the nourishment you need. You will enjoy 

166 


SCIENCE AND HEALTH 


eating it, and will feel better afterward. That’s 
the way Mr. Coue talks to his patients, and it 
always comes true for him, so it’s bound to come 
true for us.—It’s Auto-Suggestion.” 

When he had finished and was resting com¬ 
fortably, Mary Martha went down again and ate 
her supper with the Flesh-and-Bloods, as she 
always called them to herself. They were very 
pleasant to her and invited her to call them 
by their titles of relationship, as Steve did, to 
simplify the matter of names. By the time they 
arrived at dessert, she had courage to suggest 
that from that time forward they all desist, even 
down-stairs, from inquiring in doleful accents as 
to the condition of “poor Bob.” 

She said she would give the information every 
day without being asked, and began by stating 
that he was fine and looked very much better 
already. The amiability with which they acceded 
to her request was surprising, but she was grate¬ 
ful that she was spared an argument. 

After supper, she asked to have a cot made 

167 


MERRY O 


up for her inside the door of Uncle Bob's room. 
“He doesn’t really need me,” she said, “but he 
doesn’t realize yet that he is getting well, and I 
think he will feel safer to have me with him— 
on the spot.” 

Steve protested. 

“You need your sleep, Miss McAllister, you 
will not rest properly in the room with Uncle 
Bob. He talks in his sleep sometimes, and it will 
keep you awake.” 

“Oh, just for a few nights, until he knows 
for sure he is better. I want him to be easy in 
his mind, you know. And nothing ever dis¬ 
turbs me. I sleep very soundly.” 

So a cot, with mattress and blankets, was pro¬ 
duced as she desired, and Steve carried it into 
his uncle’s room and helped her to make it up 
beside the door. Then they sat down in the 
low rockers, he with the daily papers which 
came up every afternoon with the mail, she with 
her books, while the old man lay flat on his back, 
watching them both with sharp gray eyes when 

168 


SCIENCE AND HEALTH 


they were absorbed in their reading, but sliding 
from sight if either of them looked in his direc¬ 
tion. 

Mary Martha was torn between conflicting de¬ 
sires in choosing a book that night. Naturally, 
it was no less than her duty to choose Health 
by one route or another, but her own selfish 
wishes inclined her to Success in Life and Love. 
In the end, she compromised, reading fitfully 
from one and then the other. 

When she saw that Uncle Bob was beginning 
to grow sleepy, she put her book on the table 
beside the bed, folded newspapers about the light 
until the room was in heavy shadow, and sank 
again into her chair at his side. 

“Day by day, in every way, you’re getting 
better and better,” she said, slowly, monoton¬ 
ously, drowsily, again and again, now and then 
interspersing it with an occasional “Divine love 
always has met and always will meet every hu¬ 
man need.” 

Steve’s eyes upon her during this recital were 

169 


MERRY O 


quizzically amused. “You are mixing your 
methods, aren’t you?” he asked when she had 
finished. “It seems you appeal partly to Uncle 
Bob’s own mental power, and partly to God. 
All things work together,—is that the gist of 
your system?” 

“All creative, or curative power, is God,” she 
said glibly. “It says He breathed into us the 
breath of life,—that is God,—God in us. All 
through the Bible it says we are children of God. 
So whether we work on the creative principle 
within us, or the same infinite principle, God, that 
is all about us on every hand,—it is the same 
thing, after all, and leads to perfect health.” 

When Steve went out, Mary Martha straight¬ 
ened the blankets on the bed, and turned out the 
light. She forgot the copy of Science and Health 
she had left on the edge of the table at the bed¬ 
side. 

The small room adjoining Uncle Bob’s on 
the right had been given to Mary Martha for 
dressing, and she went softly in and prepared 

170 


SCIENCE AND HEALTH 


herself for bed. It took but a few moments, and 
before Uncle Bob himself was sleeping, noise¬ 
lessly, wrapped in her old flannel kimono, she 
crept back to the cot and slipped in between the 
sheets. The door beside the cot that led into the 
hall outside she left slightly ajar. 

She did not go to sleep for a long time. The 
dashing of the river on the rocks below sounded 
reverberatingly in her ears. The strange events 
of the day danced irritatingly vivid in her mind, 
—the stalled motor, the shirt-sleeved Steve and 
his excited call, her curious entrance into the 
gray cottage, the series of returning relatives 
and nurses,—it was all like a wild, wild dream. 

But Fifty Dollars a Week! “Prosperity, and 
how to attract it Mary Martha smiled con¬ 
tentedly into the darkness. 

Led! She had been not led but dragged by 
physical force into this position. Ah, truly, to 
one who walks in faith, a door of opportunity 
must open. She was very tired and when she 
fell asleep at last she slept heavily. 

171 


MERRY O 


She was aroused suddenly, with a strange sense 
of oppression, of nervous dread. She held her 
breath, listening. At first she heard only the 
pounding of the water on the rocks, and the 
sighing of the wind in the pines, then the heavy 
regular breathing of Uncle Bob in his bed on 
the opposite side of the room. But that was 
not all. She was conscious of something else. 
Panic seized upon Mary Martha, and she shivered 
with icy fear. For she could hear other breath¬ 
ing, low, strained and well controlled. With wide 
terrified eyes she stared about her, trying to pierce 
the darkness of the room. She could see noth¬ 
ing, she must be dreaming,—such a thing could 
not be. No, she was not dreaming! She heard 
it distinctly, that hushed, strained, nervous 
breathing, not at all the steady respiration that 
comes with sleep. 

Struggling to throw off the growing sense of 
horror, she sat up. '‘Who—who—who is there ?” 
she asked clearly. 

There was a startled gasp quite near her, out- 

172 


SCIENCE AND HEALTH 


side the open door, the sound of feet that ran 
quickly down the hall, the distant soft closing 
of a door and then silence. 

Mary Martha turned on the light, and ran 
about the room, looking in every corner, in the 
closet, under the bed. The room was empty. 
Uncle Bob, awakened by the noise, slid promptly 
out of sight. 

“Oh, I am sorry I woke you up,” she said 
penitently, her courage restored by the steady 
light. “I—I thought I heard something.” 

“Maybe I talked in my sleep,” he muttered, 
beneath the covers. 

“No, you didn’t. You were sleeping beauti¬ 
fully. I—I won’t do it again.” 

“Maybe you struck somebody’s complex,” he 
volunteered helpfully. 

Mary Martha smiled at that. “Come on out 
and get the air,” she coaxed. “I’m going right 
back to bed.” 

She turned off the light and lay down once 
more on her cot beside the door. But she was 

173 


MERRY O 


not deceived. Some one, she knew, had been 
at that door, stealthily, stealthily watching there, 
listening,—for some purpose Mary Martha did 
not understand. 

She could not sleep. She felt, humorously, 
like sliding under the covers as Uncle Bob him¬ 
self did in an emergency, but finally, remember¬ 
ing the rule for insomnia, she gave herself quite 
up to the nervous fancy and the fear until they 
wore themselves out after a time. Then, in a 
whisper that could not be heard a half-dozen 
inches from her lips, she repeated the sooth¬ 
ing formula, and put herself to sleep. 

It must have been two hours later that there 
was a sudden sharp movement in the bed across 
the room, and Mary Martha, lifting her head 
quickly, was just in time to see Uncle Bob catch 
up her book from the table beside him, and throw 
it far out the window, where it struck on the 
stone ledge and then bounded to the ground be¬ 
low. 

Mary Martha cried out faintly, and a moment 

174 


SCIENCE AND HEALTH 


later, Steve, his bathrobe flapping about his knees, 
ran down to see what had happened. 

“What’s the matter?” he asked from the door¬ 
way, and receiving no answer, switched on the 
light and looked about. 

Uncle Bob, far under the covers, was inert and 
motionless, breathing heavily, almost snoring. 
The book was gone from the table. Mary Martha 
sat erect in the middle of the cot, her kimono 
drawn about her shoulders, her accusing eyes 
upon the thin outline on the bed. 

“He—he threw my book out the window,” she 
said, almost tearfully. 

“He— Is he asleep?” Steve asked softly. 

A snore from the bed seemed to answer that 
he was. 

“No, he’s not! He’s just pretending. He 
threw my Science and Health out the window 
as hard as he could.” 

“I didn’t either,” came meekly from beneath 
the covers. 

Steve crossed the room and stood beside the 

175 


MERRY O 


bed, looking down upon his uncle in great per¬ 
plexity. And all at once, humbly enough, he 
emerged. 

“I didn’t either. But if I did, I did it in my 
sleep,” he insisted. 

“If you don’t want me to stay here, and nurse 
you, and cure you, why did you hire me, and 
pay me in advance?” Mary Martha asked bit¬ 
terly. “I’ll get up and go right now, if that’s 
the way you feel about me.” 

“Don’t you let her go, Steve,” the old man 
ordered quickly, and slid at once beneath the 
blankets. 

Steve set himself to the task of reassuring the 
offended Mary Martha. “He wouldn’t throw 
your book out the window,—I know he wouldn’t. 
He has taken a great fancy to you, and wouldn’t 
have you leave for anything. You mustn’t leave. 
He couldn’t stand it. None of us could stand 
it. It must have been a—a—a—” 

“A what?” 

“I don’t know. I can’t imagine what it was, 

176 


SCIENCE AND HEALTH 


Tm sure. Maybe he did it in his sleep, as he 
said. You won’t leave, will you?” 

When Mary Martha, swiftly relenting, 
promised to remain, Steve turned off the light 
and returned to his own room at the other end 
of the hall. 

Sleep for Mary Martha now was out of the 
question. Nervous, ill at ease, wondering what 
lay back of all the mysterious happenings, even 
the roar of the river, before so sweet to her ears, 
now sounded sinister and foreboding. 

She crept noiselessly across the room to the 
window through which Uncle Bob had thrown 
her book with so much force, and crouched there 
on her knees staring out over the rocky ledge 
beyond the pines, beyond the river, to the farther 
blackness where the mountains lay. 

Suddenly there was a little movement, a rus¬ 
tling of the dry pine needles on the ground be¬ 
neath her, a faint stirring of the darkness. Mary 
Martha stared intently at the spot, every nerve 
alert. From behind the rocks beneath her the 

177 


MERRY O 


vague outline of a man’s figure, shadowy in the 
blackness of the night, came slowly into view. 
It moved hesitatingly, uncertainly, stopping at 
every step to listen, and disappeared at last be¬ 
yond the corner of the house. 


CHAPTER XI 


MALPRACTISE 


A S SOON as daylight dawned, Mary Mar¬ 
tha dressed and ran down-stairs very 
softly. She found her Science and Health rather 
the worse for its experience of the night, the cov¬ 
ers soiled, some pages tom. It was lying on the 
rock directly over the river,—very little more 
strength in the old man’s arm would have sent 
it down into the swirling current. She noticed 
that the foliage on the stone embankment that 
led to the ledge outside the window was badly 
crushed and torn, not at all as it had been left 
the day previous after Steve’s quick and agile 
ascent. 

She went slowly up-stairs again, thinking of 
these things, and crossing to the window stood 
looking gravely out over the narrow rocky ledge 
some three or four feet wide. Lying on the 

179 


MERRY O 


rock, quite near the outer edge, was a small white 
button, which she knew had not been there the 
day before. Regardless of the curious eyes that 
watched her from the bed, she climbed carefully 
over the sill, clinging to the window frame for 
support, and reached for the button. It was 
a small, plain, valueless thing, the kind that is 
used on cheap every-day shirts for men. Its only 
significance lay in the fact that it had not been 
on that ledge the day before. 

Back in the room again she held it out to 
Uncle Bob, and their eyes met gravely. 

“As far as Science and Health is concerned,” 
she said soberly, “it was a plain case of mal- 
practise, and it must never happen again. There 
isn’t a sentence in the book to recommend such 
use as that. It isn’t scientific, and it isn’t Chris¬ 
tian.” 

Uncle Bob was motionless and silent. 

“You must be a pretty fair shot,” she went 
on admiringly, “to hit the window so squarely 
from where you lay in bed. I like that. But 

180 


MALPRACTISE 


we've got to practise Science and Health in the 
prescribed way hereafter. To-night, I’ll leave a 
flat iron where you can reach it handily.” 

Uncle Bob wriggled down under the blanket, 
but not before she had seen the sudden uncon¬ 
trollable grin that brightened his thin pinched 
features. 

She gave him his breakfast quietly, a delicious 
breakfast of oatmeal, cooked for hours, with pure 
cream, toasted brown bread and coffee, and aft¬ 
erward had hers with the rest of the house¬ 
hold down-stairs. As she had requested, no one 
voiced a word of inquiry as to the present con¬ 
dition of poor Bob, but Mary Martha, appreciat¬ 
ing their curiosity, was quick to gratify it. 

“Oh, he is just fine this morning. He had a 
splendid night, and ate a good breakfast. He 
looks much better, and will soon be getting up 
for exercise.” 

There seemed to be a sort of tension in the 
air, a tension she could feel but had no grounds 
on which to formulate a comment. During the 

181 


MERRY O 


entire meal, but one reference was made to the 
patient. It came from Uncle Penny. 

“Did he talk in his sleep, nurse? Did he say 
anything?” 

Aunt Tilly kicked him beneath the table, Miss 
Kezzy frowned him into confusion with a roll 
of her snapping black eyes, and Cousin Ben ef¬ 
fectually turned the subject by a severe spasm 
of coughing. But after the confusion, it was 
Steve who reverted again to the subject which 
had appeared so distasteful. 

“I was afraid he would keep you awake, Miss 
McAllister. Sometimes he mumbles along 
steadily the whole night through.” 

“He did mutter to himself a time or two,” 
she said. “But mostly he was very quiet, and 
did not disturb me in the least.” 

It seemed to her, as she spoke, that a little 
understanding flash went about the table, a flash 
that began just short of Steve, and stopped just 
short of her. Obviously, he as well as herself, 
was not in the inner circle of knowledge. 

182 


MALPRACTISE 


As she went up-stairs after breakfast, she was 
overtaken by Aunt Tilly, who quietly, but insist¬ 
ently, led her down the hall to her own room, 
and closed the door behind them. Aunt Tilly 
had plainly rehearsed in her own mind the sub¬ 
ject she intended broaching, for she spoke with¬ 
out hesitation. 

“As you know, Miss McAllister, I took a fancy 
to you the minute I saw you. I says to myself, 
‘There’s a girl of sense and judgment, and she’ll 
use both/ ” 

Mary Martha was grateful, but non-commit¬ 
tal. 

“Now, I want to say a few things to you, con¬ 
fidential, and I may say, if you want to act fair 
with me, nobody being any the wiser, it’s worth 
ten dollars a week to me, and as much to you, 
and I’ll pay you that, and gladly.” 

This surprised Mary Martha. From what she 
had seen of the Flesh-and-Bloods she had 
strongly inferred they were as one in their ab¬ 
horrence of financial expenditure—on their own 

183 



MERRY O 


account. She was alert, and on guard in a mo¬ 
ment. 

“Now, in the first place, it’s no more than 
fair that you should understand the lay of things 
about here. It’s like this. Poor Bob, being out 
of his mind, gets a sudden notion to make a will. 
Now does it stand to reason that any man that 
lived as long as Bob lived in his right senses 
without making a will, ought to make one when 
he’s sick and weak and half crazy? Naturally, 
no. It’s like this. Making no will, of course, he 
wanted his property—not that he’s got much, but 
such as he has—to be divided fair and honest 
between all concerned. Which is no more than 
fair anyhow. But when he got down weak and 
low and out of his mind, there’s some as might 
try to get him to make a will. Of course, I men¬ 
tion no names, being as it’s all in the family, 
as you might say. Naturally, we says, no. So 
now, we want you to watch, and make a quick 
report to us if he begins to hint for a lawyer 
again.” 


184 


MALPRACTISE 


"I see. But he is much better now. He will 
not want a lawyer.” 

“But if he does. He may get another spell 
any minute. If he does, nurse, if he does. And 
there’s another thing. He—he talks. Talks in 
his sleep, as they were saying at the table. It’s 
one of his weak-minded habits, and he can’t help 
it. Now, if he talks in his sleep, I want to know 
it—I mean, supposing maybe he takes a hanker¬ 
ing to have things done,—even silly things,—I— 
I’d be perfectly willing, nurse, perfectly willing. 
I believe in humoring ’em when they’re nearly 
dead. So if he says anything kind of queer, I 
want you to tell me immediately,—and nobody 
else, of course. I’d be only too glad to make 
his last days easy. And as I said, it’s worth ten 
dollars a week on the side for me to have a nice 
smart honest girl right on the job.” 

“But I don’t think he will—” 

“Now, once or twice, when he was just going 
off bad, he said something—er—something about 
—hiding. ’Course, it’s only a sick man’s notion, 

185 


MERRY O 


but if he took it into his head he wanted anything 
hid, I’d hide it, and glad of—I mean, glad to do 
anything to please him, even out of his head. 
But say nothing to any one, especially not to 
Steve, he being young and irresponsible anyhow, 
and not understanding the whims of the old and 
dying. And especially, nurse, you listen for any¬ 
thing he may say about hidings,—one way or the 
other,—either coming or going.” 

“1 can not take money for such a thing, Aunt 
Tilly. It would be very wrong. It is kind of 
you, but I can not. If he should be delirious, or 
—or mention anything in his sleep you ought 
to know, of course I will tell you, gladly. But 
I can not take any money except my salary.” 

No amount of argument could change her from 
this decision, but as her attitude in general 
seemed friendly, even grateful, and singularly 
free from any display of curiosity or suspicion, 
Aunt Tilly felt she could safely trust her. 

In the course of the morning, with every ap¬ 
pearance of deep-dyed secrecy, Mary Martha was 

186 


MALPRACTISE 


privately approached by three others of the house¬ 
hold in turn, Cousin Ben, Uncle Penny and Miss 
Kezzy. The substance of their desires was curi¬ 
ously at one,—a plea for her sole and solemn 
confidence; a particular interest as to lawyers and 
wills; deep solicitude in regard to “hidings” of 
any sort,—either things hidden or about to be 
hidden,—and emphatic warning to “say nothing 
to any one, especially young Steve.” 

If the situation had not borne such unmistak¬ 
able evidence of a sinister underlying purpose, 
Mary Martha would have laughed at the whole 
affair, and considered it only amusing. But the 
terrifying memories of the night before remained 
with her too distinctly. Only one fact in all 
the mysterious confusion was clear to Mary 
Martha. Evidently they believed that Steve would 
make good his threat to turn bodily out of the 
house any one of them who ventured inside his 
uncle’s room, and they dared not risk such evic¬ 
tion. In this extremity, they were forced to rely 
upon Mary Martha to furnish them the in- 

187 


MERRY O 


formation they desired. Further than that, Mary 
Martha could not go. 

In her efforts to restore her patient’s shattered 
confidence in his own physical strength, she was 
warmly seconded and aided by Steve. With 
reasonable care, she was convinced that Uncle 
Bob’s condition was not alarming, and that he 
could certainly be restored to perfect health. It 
was not now that he was in pain, but that he had 
acquired an abiding horror of pain, which he 
could not throw off unaided. It was not that 
he was suffering from any particular disease, 
but that every shattered nerve in his weakened 
body quivered with the dread of illness. 

Against this condition, Mary Martha, backed 
by the books in which she had unbounded con¬ 
fidence, was blithely, serenely aggressive. Re¬ 
verting to the “common sense” advocated in the 
shadowy past by Jeremy Lanton, of New Paris, 
Iowa, she selected her patient’s food with pains¬ 
taking care, preparing every morsel of it her¬ 
self in the most sanitary and healthful fashion, 

188 


MALPRACTISE 


and serving it to him in appetizing and pleasing 
style. She kept the room bright and airy, and 
rather over-emphasized her usual habits of cheery 
confidence. For the rest, she was content to go 
slowly in her effort to restore his broken faith. 
Whenever he made an extra effort for himself 
she was warm in her words of praise, and at 
her commendation, he blushed like a boy with de¬ 
light and hastened to hide his confusion beneath 
the shelter of the friendly sheets. 

When Mary Martha set out that afternoon for 
her necessary period of freedom, this time with 
a basket of fresh spring vegetables, Steve asked, 
half shyly, if he might not take a little exercise 
as well, at the same time and in the same direc¬ 
tion. Mary Martha flushed nervously, stammer¬ 
ing as she gave him to understand that she must 
be alone to hold her thought on the image of 
perfect health she was constructing for Uncle 
Bob. Steve was obliged to accept the explana¬ 
tion, but he did not forget her stammering con¬ 
fusion. 


189 


MERRY O 


She found her father and sisters very com¬ 
fortable in their acceptance of government hos¬ 
pitality, and gaily entered upon a spicy recital of 
her experiences in the gray stone cottage. The 
girls had a thousand questions to ask, about 
Uncle Bob, about the handsome Steve, about the 
funny Flesh-and-Bloods. 

The story of their own experience was one 
of unalloyed happiness. The girls had been wad¬ 
ing in the river, their father had caught three 
darling little speckled trout, they had seen a 
mountain goat, and in the night they were awak¬ 
ened by a terrible roaring which could have been 
nothing less than a lion. The girls declared it 
was like sleeping in a boat, in their room just 
over the river, for the rushing and booming of 
the water fairly shook the shingled shack on the 
rocks above. 

And then they showed her delightedly, for 
the third time, all over their picturesque home, 
which, after one night of occupation, they felt 
was theirs indeed. 


190 


MALPRACTISE 


To Mary Martha the shingled shack, after the 
elaborate perfection of the stone cottage, was 
very primitive, lacking as it did all the modem 
conveniences with which the other was equipped, 
and being constructed on rough, although artis¬ 
tic lines. The cellar room had been ingeniously 
contrived as a garage, and their father had al¬ 
ready repaired the hinges of the door and fast¬ 
ened it with a lock of his own connivance. 

Leading down the outside of the cottage from 
the room their father occupied, was a charmingly 
quaint stairway built in the rocks, and at Teddy’s 
eager insistence Mary Martha ran lightly down 
to see for herself just how lovely it was. 

“We can sit on the steps and fish when father 
cuts us longer poles,” cried Teddy. 

After Mary Martha had inspected their larder, 
made a few further suggestions as to Vivien’s 
keeping of the house, cautioned Teddy most par¬ 
ticularly not to fall from the stone steps into 
the river and get drowned,—which was a ter¬ 
rible thought-form for her to be sending out, as 

191 


MERRY O 


she remembered afterward,—she set off up the 
road toward the stone cottage. 

Coming down the rocky path from the house, 
his rifle over his arm, she met Steve. 

“Are you tired?” he asked. “Won’t you walk 
a bit with me ? Maybe we’ll find some shooting. 
Uncle Bob’s sound asleep, I just came from his 
room.” He handed her the key with a smile. “I 
locked the door behind me, although the Flesh- 
and-Bloods seem suddenly almost human. You 
must be a good fairy, you seem to have charmed 
them.” 

Mary Martha turned about very willingly. She 
loved the winding road among the high boulders 
and the pines, but she was careful to lead the 
way upward at the cross-road instead of down 
the other way toward the shingled shack on the 
abandoned trail. 

They sat on the rocks by the river a while, 
listening to the booming of the water, to the stir¬ 
ring of the wind in the pines, and talked of many 
things. It was Mary Martha, never forgetful 

192 



And talked of many things 







MALPRACTISE 


of the responsibilities connected with fifty dollars 
a week, who rose at last reluctantly, and said 
they must go back. 

Walking slowly, happily along, they turned 
suddenly from behind a great boulder and came 
face to face with Vivien and Teddy, who after 
Mary Martha had left them had been seized irre¬ 
sistibly with the* desire for further exploration, 
and mischance had brought them along this road. 

“Oh, Merry O!” cried Teddy, forgetting the 
sisters were to be as strangers, and then, as 
Vivien nudged her sharply with her elbow, she 
clasped her hands across her lips and looked 
frightened. 

After the first startled, impulsive movement, 
Mary Martha was not disconcerted. She tilted 
her slender chin at a higher angle and walked 
demurely on, never the flicker of a lash disturb¬ 
ing her nonchalance. Vivien flushed a vivid scar¬ 
let as they passed, and Steve glanced with quickly 
appraising eyes from the confused and blushing 
girls to the imperturbable Mary Martha beside 

193 


MERRY O 


him. He was not inquisitive by nature and asked 
no questions, but took up the conversation where 
it had been dropped. 

Making another sharp turn in the road, where 
they again came in view of the stone cottage, 
only a little way ahead, they stopped short, and 
Mary Martha clutched at Steve’s arm, while for 
a moment both stood as though all power of 
motion were lost. 

Up over the rocky ledge, outside the window of 
the sick room, they saw Uncle Bob himself, lean¬ 
ing out over the sill, slowly swinging his arm 
back and forth from left to right. 

“Oh, what now!” gasped Mary Martha. 

“They—they all say he’s crazy, and maybe he 
is,” muttered Steve, beneath his breath. 

“Maybe he’s calling for help!” 

Steve caught Mary Martha’s hand in his, and 
they broke into a dead run for the cottage. 


CHAPTER XII 


TERRORS BY NIGHT 

T HE house was very still, and there was 
no one to be seen in the down-stairs rooms, 
as Mary Martha and Steve, still hand in hand, 
ran through the hall and up the stairs. There 
was silence, too, behind the locked door of the 
sick room. 

Steve knocked nervously. “Uncle Bob!” he 
called. “Let us in! Quick!” 

A throaty snore sounded from within, aside 
from which there was no answer. 

Steve knocked again. “Uncle Bob!” 

“Door’s locked,” came feebly then. “Use your 
key.” 

Mary Martha’s hands shook so she could not 
hold the key, but Steve finally found the keyhole 
and threw open the door. Together they sprang 
into the room,—and stopped aghast. Uncle Bob 

195 


MERRY O 


was on the bed beneath the blankets exactly as 
they had left him, breathing heavily. 

Steve jerked the covers from his face, and he 
looked up at them innocently, blinking his eyes 
as from the glare of light. 

“You’re awful noisy about it,” he muttered. 
“Woke me all up.” 

Mary Martha looked at Steve, Steve looked at 
Mary Martha, and they both looked at Uncle 
Bob. Certainly there he lay on the bed, as help¬ 
less, as meek, as gray, as ever. They went to 
the window. Below them the narrow ledge of 
rock stretched away from the wall, and then de¬ 
scended sharply to the ground. 

Not five minutes before they had seen Uncle 
Bob in that very spot, bending out over the sill, 
waving his arm back and forth, the loosely 
flapping white sleeve of his night shirt showing 
plainly in the bright light, or had they seen him ? 

“Did you see it, too?” Steve asked, at last. 

Mary Martha nodded solemnly. “I saw it,” 
she declared. 


196 


TERRORS BY NIGHT 


They marched once more to the bed, but the 
sheet was drawn neatly up over the thin face, 
and the heavy breathing from beneath discour¬ 
aged further investigation at that moment. Mary 
Martha and Steve sat weakly down in the low 
chairs on opposite sides of the bed, and gave 
themselves up to serious thoughts. 

It was quite late in the afternoon that Mary 
Martha decided her patient would be the better 
for further exercise. Knowing he had been at 
the window, she was convinced that he lacked 
not so much strength as confidence, because on 
the spur of the moment, without waiting to con¬ 
sider his heart, he could evidently put forth great 
and harmless effort. The thing to be done, then, 
was to make him realize that he could exert the 
same effort premeditatedly and with conscious de¬ 
termination, suffering no ill effects therefor. 

“Come on out, Uncle Bob,” she called cheer¬ 
fully. “You are going to sit by the window a 
while, and enjoy the view.” 

Uncle Bob was frightened. He thought at 

197 


MERRY O 


once of his heart. He held a pitifully protective 
thin gray hand to his side, as Mary Martha and 
Steve gently assisted him across the room and 
into the chair made soft with pillows, expecting 
to feel at once that quick painful stab through 
his heart. He looked at his nurse with anxious 
eyes. 

Mary Martha was gentle but firm. “You are 
all right,” she said. “Believe me, it will not 
hurt you. It will do you good. You have eaten 
nourishing food, you haven’t had a sign of in¬ 
digestion, your pulse is full and steady. Don’t 
worry.” 

He could not control the nervous tremor in his 
knees, and would not be induced to remove his 
hand from his side. In a few moments he was 
covered with cold perspiration. Mary Martha 
felt his heart. 

“Fine, steady beating,” she said reassuringly. 
“No pressure, no pain, it is fine, it is getting 
better all the time. This will do you good, it 
will make you stronger.” 

198 


TERRORS BY NIGHT 


In a few moments she helped him back to 
bed again, and when he slid gratefully out of 
sight, she sat beside him. 

“Remember, it did you good,” she repeated. 
“Now that you are eating proper food at proper 
hours, you have got to be all right. You’ll be 
stronger to-morrow.” 

His accusing gray eyes appeared. “I always 
ate good food, and lots of it.” 

“Yes, you did,” Mary Martha was gently de¬ 
risive. “I know all about the way you lived. 
You ate fried meat and fried potatoes three times 
a day. It’s a wonder you aren’t dead, and I 
really think it’s no more than you deserve, but 
I’m awfully glad you’re not.” 

He withdrew from that attack without argu¬ 
ment. 

“Meat twice a week is plenty for a man of 
your age,” she went on in a didactic tone. “As 
you go higher and higher in spiritual develop¬ 
ment, you will require less and less rich stimu¬ 
lating food like meat. Eventually you will give 

199 


MERRY O 


it up entirely, I suppose, when you develop high 
enough.” 

He came up again when she said that. “I 
expect to stop developing just short of the point, 
miss,” he told her. 

“You can’t stop when once you get a good 
start. You work yourself into the cycle and 
have to keep on, higher and higher. It’s the rule, 
you know.” 

Mary Martha was singularly broad-minded in 
her method of handling sickness. There was so 
much to be commended in all the systems, and 
she could not bear to neglect anything helpful and 
good. But there was one point on which all her 
authorities were agreed, so she held that as a 
central sun, and radiated from it without dis¬ 
crimination into the realms of New Thought, 
Christian Science, Auto-Suggestion, and Mental 
Healing. Psycho-Analysis she rather slighted, 
for she wasn't at all sure it was respectable, and 
she didn’t understand it very well anyhow. 

The pivot on which her method revolved was 

200 


TERRORS BY NIGHT 


the image of perfect health. She clung to this 
image herself, she forced Uncle Boh to regard it, 
and as far as was humanly possible she flaunted 
it in the faces of the skeptical Flesh-and-Bloods. 
She banished every thought, every picture and 
as much as she could, every fear of sickness. 

Fortunately, Uncle Bob was greatly pleased 
with Mary Martha, and although he received 
most of her attentions by sliding promptly from 
sight, he listened eagerly to her every word of 
confident assurance. Best of all, he believed what 
she said. That was the great thing in Mary 
Martha’s favor, his faith in her* And Mary 
Martha, from her untiring study qf all the meth¬ 
ods, knew that to be the deciding factor in every 
one,—faith,—in something,—in God, (as she 
herself proclaimed), in the system of vibration, 
in Cosmic Consciousness, in one’s own subjective 
mind. Of course coming down to simple faith 
in humble Mary Martha was a great drop, but 
surely it was better than no faith at all. 

The second evening was spent as the one pre- 

201 


MERRY O 


ceding, but when Steve said good night and left 
her, Mary Martha looked anxiously about the 
room and in the halls and out from the windows. 
She was not afraid, she told herself repeatedly, 
she did not vibrate to fear, she had no thought- 
forms of fear. But just the same that first night 
had had its disturbing moments, and she desired 
no repetition of them. 

She carefully moved her books beyond reach 
of the bed, ranging them neatly on the desk in 
the corner, and smiled when she saw the old man 
watching furtively with one gray eye above the 
coverlet. 

“If you hear any sudden noises in the night, 
don’t get nervous,” he cautioned kindly. 

Mary Martha stopped short and frowned at 
him. “What kind of a sudden noise do you 
intend to make to-night?” she demanded. 

“This is a mountain country,” he answered 
evasively, “and the rocks have a habit of tum¬ 
bling off one another most unexpected; like to 
raise the dead.” 


202 


TERRORS BY NIGHT 


“Maybe you think it was an earthquake heaved 
my book out of the window last night,” she sug¬ 
gested. 

But as he was out of sight and motionless, she 
turned off the lights. She left the door into the 
hallway a scant three inches ajar, and moved her 
cot across the opening so that no one could get 
in without awakening her. Then she got into 
bed and felt secure. 

The house continued blissfully quiet, and Mary 
Martha, really very tired, fell soon into a heavy 
sleep, lulled by the steady rushing of the water 
below. 

Hours later she was awakened by a noise, a 
sharp staccato cry that sounded almost human, 
a scraping on the rocks, a heavy crash; 
then silence again. In an instant, Mary Martha 
was on her feet, switching on the lights. Uncle 
Bob was completely covered by the sheets; his thin 
form heaving up and down quite shook the bed. 

“Are—are you laughing?” gasped Mary 
Martha. 


203 


t 


MERRY O 

Instantly the heaving ceased, and a mild snore 
was her answer. But as Mary Martha knew her 
eccentric patient snored only when he was fully 
awake, she cast a look of withering scorn at his 
sheet-covered figure and hurried to the window. 
Outside, except for the water and the wind, every¬ 
thing was quiet, an unbroken pall of black lying 
over mountain and rock and pine. But as she 
knelt there, listening, wondering, from the deep 
blackness below came a low moaning, perhaps of 
suffering, perhaps but one of the many breath¬ 
less noises of the mountain night. 

“Is—is anybody there?” she called, oh, very 
softly. 

There was a slow dragging through the leaves, 
a crackling of dry pine needles on the ground, 
the occasional falling of a pebble as though some 
wounded animal were slinking off to cover in the 
darkness. 

“The place is haunted,” whispered Mary 
Martha. 

‘Til bet there was a mountain goat fell off 

204 


TERRORS BY NIGHT 


the rocks and skinned himself. Awful awkward 
beasts, mountain goats,” volunteered the old man 
in a startlingly clear and decisive voice. “The 
woods is full of animals sneaking around. Noth¬ 
ing to be afraid of. Go on back to bed.” 

Mary Martha looked at him. Then she turned 
to the desk where her books were piled and picked 
one up reflectively. “Psychic Powers, and How 
to Develop Them,” she read the title aloud. She 
looked again at the strange old man. 

“I’m going to develop my psychic powers so 
I can read your mind,” she declared. “I just 
believe you’ve got a lot of things up your sleeve 
that nobody has any notion of.” 

In the face of this onslaught there was noth¬ 
ing for Uncle Bob to do but withdraw as grace¬ 
fully as possible to his favorite retreat, which 
he did at once, answering her only with the faint 
snore which proclaimed his disinclination for 
further talk. 

In spite of her fear, Mary Martha could but 
laugh at the ludicrousness of it all. On a sudden 

205 


MERRY O 


impulse, she ran her hand lightly over the cover¬ 
let, where his arm should be. “You’re an aw¬ 
fully nice old thing,” she said, in a friendly voice. 
“I wish you’d tell me all your secrets.” 

As Uncle Bob did not reply Mary Martha 
returned to bed, but left the light burning bright¬ 
ly. There was no further disturbance that night 
in the gray stone cottage by the river. 


CHAPTER XIII 


BOOSTING KARMA 

U NCLE Bob was in unusually good spirits 
the next morning and showed great im¬ 
provement in every way. His eyes were brighter, 
his voice more mellow, and his face seemed to 
have lost something of its gray gauntness of 
color and contour. He submitted amiably to 
Mary Martha’s ministrations, followed her de¬ 
votedly through a series of “Day by day, in every 
way, I’m getting better and better,” and then 
said he was hungry and asked her to hurry his 
breakfast. 

He ate with keen relish the bowl of berries 
she brought him, the dish of cereal and cream, 
the toast and coffee, and suggested pleasantly 
that once in a while he fancied a nice piece of 
fried ham for his breakfast. To this she replied, 
in the same pleasant manner, that he had now 

207 




MERRY O 


developed so far beyond the stage of fried-ham- 
for-breakfast that she would be ashamed to offer 
it to him. 

“How’s everybody down-stairs this morning ?” 
he asked, adroitly turning the conversation at 
that point. 

It was the first time he had shown a spark of 
interest in anything that went on down-stairs, al¬ 
though all the Flesh-and-Bloods were his guests 
after a fashion. Mary Martha was greatly en¬ 
couraged and felt that at last her progress was 
a matter of fact as well as faith. 

“Every one’s fine, I suppose,” she answered. 
“I didn’t see any one but Miss Kezzy. The others 
are not up yet. She was all right.” Then act¬ 
ing on a sudden impish impulse she added, “Miss 
Kezzy says if there is anything you want hidden, 
she’ll be glad to undertake it for you.” 

His thin lips parted with astonishment, once, 
twice, then he gasped and sank quickly from 
sight. 

When Mary Martha went down for her break- 

208 


BOOSTING KARMA 


fast, she found intense excitement prevailing be¬ 
low stairs. Uncle Penny, they told her, had risen 
early, hoping to catch a speckled trout for his 
breakfast, but on his way to the river had slipped 
on a loose rock and fallen heavily down the bank. 
In addition to the general shock and nervous 
strain of such a fall for one of his years, he had 
twisted his right foot rather badly and it was 
now greatly swollen and inflamed. With true 
spartan courage, rather than disturb the house¬ 
hold by calling for aid and fearing the possible 
disastrous consequences to poor Bob, he had crept 
back to his bed and waited for daylight before 
asking assistance. 

Mary Martha hastened to bathe the bruised and 
swollen foot, bandaging it tightly, and gave 
structions to Aunt Tilly and Miss Kezzy about 
keeping it in hot applications during the day. 
Uncle Penny was grateful for her solicitude. He 
assured her again and again that he had known 
from the first she was a fine girl, and he sent his 
love to poor Bob, asking her to tell him that 

209 


MERRY O 


of he was at all concerned about any hidings of 
any sort, he, Uncle Penny, in spite of his afflic¬ 
tion, would cheerfully undertake his errands. 
This last, he informed her, was of course in 
strictest confidence. 

Leaving him, Mary Martha rah quickly up to 
Uncle Bob again. Evidently her light footfalls 
made no sound on the bear skin rugs in the hall¬ 
way, for as she deftly turned the lock and swung 
wide the door, she was horrified to find the bed 
pulled half-way out from its usual place against 
the wall, and Uncle Bob himself hanging over 
the edge of it, his head far under, his shoulders 
lunging forward. 

“Mercy!” cried Mary Martha, thinking at first 
he must have fallen. 

Uncle Bob, with flaming cheeks, squirmed his 
way back into bed and under the covers. Even 
he had not the assurance to offer up a snore of 
defiance in the face of this discovery. Mary 
Martha moved the bed carefully back to its 
proper position against the wall, adjusted the 

210 


BOOSTING KARMA 


blankets and then, quite unable to resist the temp¬ 
tation, got softly down on hands and knees and 
peered under the bed to discover what could have 
prompted her patient to such unwonted exertion. 

Her curiosity went unrewarded. She saw 
simply the bare floor of dark brown wood, one 
corner of a trailing sheet on the other side, and 
the wainscoting of the same dark brown wood 
in which the whole interior of the cottage was 
finished. More mystified than ever, she rose to 
her feet, flushing vividly to find a sharp gray eye 
watching her from the pillow. It disappeared at 
once, and she set quickly to work straightening 
the room. 

“Uncle Penny had an accident,” she began 
sociably, after a little. 

The blankets heaved suddenly, and a pair of 
interested gray eyes appeared. 

“Oh! Uncle Penny, eh?” And immediately 
he went off into a series of deep dry chuckles. 

“Are you laughing?” Mary Martha demanded, 
as she had once before in the night-time. 

211 


MERRY O 


Uncle Bob was indignant. “Certainly not. I 
just feel sorry! Poor Penny!” 

Mary Martha could not help laughing, the sat¬ 
isfaction in his gray eyes and the hearty chuckles 
so plainly belied his feeling sorry for Uncle 
Penny’s accident. But she proceeded to detail 
the event of the morning as she had heard it 
down-stairs and ended with Uncle Penny at that 
moment propped up in a big chair, a bandaged 
foot, and the two women relatives armed with 
hot applications in attendance. 

Twice during this recital, Uncle Bob retired 
beneath the covers, which silently rose and fell 
a time or two. After which he reappeared, a 
little flushed, his thin gray hair disheveled, .to 
hear the rest of the story. When Mary Martha 1 
had quite finished, his gray eyes searched her! 
face. 

'Pretty steady girl on your feet?”, he asked. 
‘Yes, very steady.” 

‘Think maybe you could climb out my window 
on that rocky ledge and feel your way about and 

212 


(t i 






BOOSTING KARMA 


maybe do—a little—picking up?” he asked anx¬ 
iously. 

“I am sure I can.”* 

“ 'Course, a stiff old codger like me—or Uncle 
Penny—’d likely have to take off our shoes and 
go in our sock-feet, but you youngsters have 
got more nerve.” 

“I can do it with my shoes on,” she said con¬ 
fidently. 

He withdrew from sight. “Seems to me I 
saw a lot of tacks lying about on that ledge,” 
he said distinctly. “They ought to be picked up 
from there. Anybody stepping around accidental 
imight get on a tack and have a bad tumble.” 

Mary Martha carefully got through the win¬ 
dow and out upon the rocky ledge. She felt her 
way cautiously about and, as he had said, found 
stacks in great abundance, tacks of a particularly 
L sharp-pointed variety, lying all about, up and 
L down. In a way it made her think of a barbed- 
[wire entanglement—an entanglement outside the 
invalid’s window,—but for what purpose? 

213 


MERRY O 


She picked them up carefully, one by one, 
as many as she could find, and then clambered 
back over the sill into the room again. Once in¬ 
side, she stood a moment and looked out. She 
had thought of a curious thing. A white-shirted 
arm, moving back and forth outside that window, 
could scatter tacks upon the rocky ledge just as 
these tacks were scattered! She sat down in the 
chair beside the bed, and looked at the outline 
under the blankets. 

“Then you don’t really think the noise last 
night was a mountain goat losing his balance 
and skinning himself?” she began severely. 

The gray face appeared at once, and the eyes 
seemed to be twinkling almost humorously at 
her. 

“No, nurse, I think it was somebody getting 
his Karma,” he answered gravely. “I’m not above 
giving Karma a boost now and then when she 
moves too slow on the job. But I’ll bet you five 
to one we get a good night’s sleep to-night.” 

Mary Martha was glad she was only a nurse, 

214 


BOOSTING KARMA 


and not required to unravel the mysteries of this 
queer gray house by the river. Uncle Bob had 
expected an intruder,—had prepared his trap ac¬ 
cordingly,—there had been the cry and the crash 
in the night, the creeping away and the moaning, 
—and this morning one of the Flesh-and-Bloods 
—Uncle Penny—was suffering from the effect 
of a serious fall! Well, these might be the facts, 
the whys were past her understanding. 

Mary Martha said nothing further about the 
matter, but spent the morning as usual in the 
room with Uncle Bob, doing what she could to 
make him comfortable, and to keep him enter¬ 
tained, always striving to hold in his thought the 
image of perfect health. 

It was nearly noon before she went down 
again and as she tripped through the hall, her 
feet were suddenly riveted to the floor and she 
shivered with a new and suffocating fear. From 
behind the closed door of the dining-room she 
heard a voice, a pretty, high-pitched, musical 
voice,—the voice of her sister Vivien! 

215 


CHAPTER XIV 


WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK 

M ARY MARTHA, in the throes of a name¬ 
less horror, did not wait to hear the 
words, could not have understood them if she 
had heard, so stunned was she with fear. Vague¬ 
ly, in place of the pure and wholesome 
thought-forms she so assiduously cultivated, 
danced maddening visions of calamity,—Teddy 
swept away on the bosom of the perilous rushing 
river; her father mangled and torn by the wild 
beasts of the mountains; the shingled shack 
mantled with fire and her dear ones nothing now 
but charred and blackened ashes. Mary Martha 
cried out in anguish, and ran forward, blindly 
staggering, throwing open the door to the room 
and swaying against it for support, white-lipped, 
stark-eyed. 

“Tell me—what—oh, what—” 

216 


WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK 


Great tears, of relief, of relaxation, even of 
anger welled slowly up into Mary Martha’s blue 
eyes as she sank trembling into the nearest chair. 

“I—I was frightened—” she stammered. “I 
am upset—” 

For in the bright little room there was no 
appearance of calamity nor any suggestion of 
disaster. The first thing Mary Martha saw was 
Vivien—Vivien matchlessly arrayed in Mary 
Martha’s own best Sunday blouse, her lovely dark 
curls drawn enticingly about her ears, the faint¬ 
est dash of rouge on her exquisite skin, and her 
great eyes shining limpid and clear, wicked 

though they were, behind her silken fringe of 

/ 

lashes. Very brightly, with pretty enthusiasm, 
she was displaying her beauty products to Miss 
Kezzy and Aunt Tilly, while from his chair by 
the window Uncle Penny looked on with interest, 
and even Cousin Ben bent approving eyes on 
the lovely young pedler. In the farthest corner, 
his chair tipped back against the wall, tugging 
with enjoyment at his big pipe, his gray eyes as 

217 


MERRY O 


quizzically keen at the moment as Uncle Bob’s 
own, sat Steve. 

Mary Martha dropped her head into her hands 
and burst into faint hysterical laughter. After 
her terrible fears, it was so ridiculous and so 
natural. Knowing Vivien as she did, she should 
have been prepared for something of the sort. 

For to one of Vivien’s romantic taste, it was 
nothing less than torturing that a quarter of a 
mile away, Mary Martha passed thrilling, de¬ 
lirious hours in a mystery cottage of lovely gray 
stone, catering to the whims of a charmingly 
eccentric old gentleman, pampered and petted by 
four astonishing Flesh-and-Bloods down-stairs, 
to say nothing at all of the handsome Steve,— 
although Vivien’s calculations reckoned Steve 
first and foremost, as the one fleeting glimpse 
she had of him on the roadside showed plainly 
that he was of the very most irresistibly intrigu¬ 
ing type of species male. 

No wonder Vivien had flounced the dishes 
angrily in the water! Here she was, keeping 

218 


WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK 


house like an old woman in this stupid wreck of 
a shingled brown shack, and up there such a 
little way— 

Vivien was sorry now that she had not utilized 
her opportunity to drink deep of the Pierian 
springs of New Thought, Theosophy and Chris¬ 
tian Science, such as would enable her also to 
meet the exigencies of Mary Martha’s divinely 
demonstrated position, but it was too late to 
worry about that now. One thing was certain, 
she had no mind to sit here calmly twiddling her 
thumbs without so much as a peek within the 
house of mystery. 

To Mary Martha, who knew her, Vivien must, 
inevitably, have reasoned after such a fash¬ 
ion. And when the first stunning shock of sur¬ 
prise had passed Mary Martha realized that since 
it was bound to come, it was as well to get it 
over. 

Vivien herself, so far from being embarrassed 
by Mary Martha’s appearance, was pleased that 
her sister had come to witness her cleverness. 

219 


MERRY O 


She hastened to Mary Martha with her jar of 
cream. 

“Ah, miss, you, I know, will be interested 
in the complexion cream I am offering,” she said. 
“I use it myself every night I assure you, with 
the result that you can see. Look, ladies! By 
nature, I dare say the young lady’s complexion 
is almost as good as my own, but see! Alas, 
for such neglect! Each night I use this cream, 
while the young lady has neglected to cleanse and 
to nourish.—See!” She mischievously thrust her 
own cheek close to Mary Martha’s for compari¬ 
son. And Vivien’s skin even without the fine 
coating of powder and the dash of rouge, was 
quite incomparable. 

“See now! That proves it,” said Aunt Tilly 
firmly. 

“My hair tonic, ladies. See,—the young lady’s 
hair, though of exquisite texture and color, all 
flying disorderly, tangled.” She looked at Mary 
Martha’s golden curls with disfavor. “My own, 
see,—smooth, luxuriant, and glossy fine.” 

220 


WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK 


(Vivien indeed had always taken the greatest 
pride in her beautiful wealth of hair.) 

“See? See that now!” approved Miss Kezzy. : 

And both women hurried away for their 
purses. 

“Do you live near here, miss, or are you of a 
band of gipsies?” asked Mary Martha, deter¬ 
mined to have some slight revenge for this humil¬ 
iation in the presence of Steve. 

A glint of appreciation of this thrust glowed 
for a moment in Vivien’s bright eye. “Gipsies, 
lady, we are gipsies.” She took up a tube of 
shaving cream and held it out to Steve. “Shav¬ 
ing cream, sir? It is wonderful.” 

“Do you use it yourself?” he asked lazily. 

Vivien tapped him coquettishly on the shoulder, 
never heeding, but by no means overlooking Mary 
Martha’s sudden alertness at the familiarity. 

“You tease, sir, you tease the poor little gipsy. 
Shall I tell your fortune, sir?” 

Mary Martha was frankly pleased that Aunt 
Tilly and Miss Kezzy returned at that moment. 

221 


MERRY O 


“I suppose you can’t cook, girl,” said Miss 
Kezzy hopefully. 

A sudden eagerness came into Vivien’s face. 
“Cook?” she repeated, glancing speculatively at 
handsome Steve. “Surely, I can cook for the 
king’s taste. Gipsies specialize on cooking, al¬ 
ways.” 

“Our cook, Hezekiah,” went on Miss Kezzy 
plaintively, “who was a slovenly nigger anyhow, 
and a good riddance, went off all of a sudden for 
no reason and we’ve had to do our own work, 
and we don’t like it. If you’d like to come and 
cook for us a few weeks we’ll pay you very well, 
indeed. Your folks could camp in the mountains, 
and you could sleep at home.” 

Vivien’s mischievous face glowed with delight. 
She dropped dramatically upon one knee. “Oh, 
madame, you are an angel. So! You will let 
me cook. Oh, madame, how hard I will work for 
you.” Again the lovely eyes strayed to Steve 
tilted in his chair against the wall. “A pedler! 
Ah, people laugh, people slam the doors, people 

222 


WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK 


sick the dogs, people shout go away!” She closed 
her satchel of beauty preparations with a snap. 
“I shall be no pedler from this on. I am a 
cook.” 

Mary Martha tried in vain to freeze her with 
an icy eye; Vivien would not look. “And the 
poor sick man,—Ah, how I shall cook the 
heavenly food for him,” she gurgled joyously. 

Deeply pleased with any arrangement that 
would relieve her of burdensome and unpleas¬ 
ant work in the kitchen, and unmindful of the 
warning whispers of the men as to “trusting a 
gipsy,” Miss Kezzy led Vivien at once to the 
kitchen, followed closely by Mary Martha. Miss 
Kezzy’s one desire was to shift the distasteful 
task to other shoulders, and she felt that by con¬ 
fining the gipsy to the kitchen, and watching her 
carefully there would be no chance for theft. 
Besides,—it was not Miss Kezzy’s house, and she 
kept her own valuables locked in her trunk. 

In the kitchen, Vivien happily tossed her little 
flowered hat upon a chair, and hastened to stir 

223 


MERRY O 


up the fire to show the zeal with which she en¬ 
tered upon her new duties. Miss Kezzy gave a 
few vague instructions about the preparation of 
dinner and cheerfully withdrew. 

As soon as the girls were alone, Mary Martha 
closed the door and faced her sister sternly, but 
Vivien caught her about the waist, and danced 
her around the table gaily, but cautiously—a-tip- 
toe. 

“Oh, Merry O! Isn’t this a picnic? Isn’t 
this a circus? Oh, aren’t you glad I thought of 
it? And I’m going to flirt with Mr. Steve half 
the time, too, I give you fair warning. Isn’t he 
beautiful?” 

Mary Martha could not help laughing, in spite 
of the seriousness of their predicament. “Oh, 
Vivien, you awful thing!” she said. “Why didn’t 
you tell me ? It gave me a terrible fright.” 

“You aren’t mad, are you, Merry O? I was 
afraid you wouldn’t let me.” 

“But, Vivie, listen. You can’t stay here. We’d 
give it away, in no time, and you can’t cook—” 

224 


WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK 


‘T know. You’ll have to do it for me.” 

“But I can’t. It wouldn’t look right, and they 
would get suspicious. And we can’t act like any¬ 
thing but sisters, and we’ll both be fired in no 
time. Think of the fifty a week, Vivie! It’s 
hard enough anyhow, but with you right here 
in the kitchen,—Vivie, honestly, you can’t.” 

Vivien hesitated, pouted, looked tearful, but 
presently yielded. 

“I got to see them anyhow,” she triumphed. 
“I got in slick enough, didn’t I?” 

“Yes, but how in the world will you ever get 
out—without giving everything away?” 

“Oh, leave it to me. You’ve no imagination 
at all.” 

So Mary Martha set anxiously to work get¬ 
ting dinner for Uncle Bob, while Vivien began 
peeling potatoes. She peeled just two, piling 
the thick broad parings beneath her hand, and 
leaving only tiny scraps of the potato when she 
had finished. Suddenly she gave a loud hysteri¬ 
cal cry that brought the entire family rushing 

225 


MERRY O 


to the kitchen, even Uncle Penny hobbling after, 
on a stick. Vivien, with wild and tragic ges¬ 
tures, flung the potatoes about the kitchen, hither 
and thither, as fast as she could send them, cry¬ 
ing all the while in a high voice, “Oh! Oh! Oh!” 

Steve leaned against the door in the corner, his 
eyes, not upon the dramatic, hysterical gipsy, but 
upon the crimson face, the rigid line of scarlet 
lip, the sturdily lowered lashes of Mary Martha, 
who never stopped her work. 

“I am a princess,” shrieked Vivien. “I am the 
child of the queen of all the gipsies. I will not 
be disgraced by peeling potatoes! How dare you 
order me to do such menial tasks! Scrub the 
pans, mop the floors, polish the knives,—it is 
an insult!” 

The dismayed and terrified relatives clustered 
in nervous bewilderment close beside the door. 
Vivien rudely brushed them aside, caught up her 
flowered hat and her satchel of beauty products, 
and ran passionately from the house and down 
the winding rocky pathway. 

226 


WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK 


‘Til bet she stole something/' prophesied Uncle 
Penny. 

“G-g-gipsies are so t-t-temperamental,” mur¬ 
mured Mary Martha, and then quite unable to 
restrain herself any longer, she dropped into a 
chair and burst into laughter. 

“Nurses, too," assented Steve, drawing nearer 
to where she sat. “I’ve often noticed how tem¬ 
peramental they are, nurses and gispsies and such 
folks." 

Mary Martha looked at him, quickly question¬ 
ing eyes searching his steady ones, but Steve was 
smiling and tugging peacefully at his big pipe. 


CHAPTER XV 


NEITHER DEAD NOR SLEEPING 

T RUE to the prediction of Uncle Bob, they 
had a peaceful night, and Mary Martha 
was inclined to believe his boost for Karma had 
been altogether effectual. While it scarcely 
seemed possible that all those strange and ter¬ 
rifying noises had been caused by the nocturnal 
prowlings of shy sanctimonious Uncle Penny, 
there had certainly been a sudden cessation of 
them, for which she was grateful. 

Uncle Bob was much better in every way, yet 
in the course of the morning when Mary Martha 
again suggested exercise, he ventured his usual 
mild but anxious remonstrance. Mary Martha 
sat down on the bed at his side. 

“Listen,” she said. “Just put your mind on 
this for a minute. You are afraid to get up. 
That’s all that ails you. You are afraid you will 

228 


NEITHER DEAD NOR SLEEPING 


strain your heart, and have another attack. That 
is what fear does to you. And unless you get 
rid of your fear, what you fear will happen, be¬ 
cause you’re creating your own condition. Re¬ 
member what Job said,—‘The thing which I 
greatly feared is come upon me/ Sure it did, 
that’s why. Because he did fear it. It’s in the Bible. 
Maybe you don’t remember, for you probably 
weren’t brought up on the Bible the way we were.” 

Long before Mary Martha reached this point, 
Uncle Bob was only visible in blanketed outline. 
She did not spare him. 

“When you got interested in something else 
and forgot your heart, what did you do? Got 
out of bed all by yourself, rummaged around 
until you found a box of tacks and scattered 
them outside your window. It didn’t hurt you 
a bit. You were so eager to boost Karma you 
forgot you had a heart. And it didn’t hurt you 
because you forgot your fear.” 

Mary Martha paused again, to see if he wished 
to argue. He did not. 

229 


MERRY O 


“Then you took a silly notion to go under the 
bed, heaven only knows what for, so you got up 
by yourself, and pulled this heavy bed out from 
the wall, and crawled under head-first hanging on 
to the blankets, blood circulating upside down, and 
everything—and even that didn’t hurt you. Be¬ 
cause you forgot to be afraid and had your mind 
on something else. But go right ahead if you 
like, and when it happens just quote the Bible 
to yourself and say with Job, ‘The thing which 
I greatly feared is come upon me.’ ” 

Mary Martha picked up a book and began to 
read, with never another word about exercise. 
Ten minutes later, Uncle Bob emerged of his own 
accord, and said, placatingly: 

“I don’t see as a little exercise would do me 
any harm, if you like, nurse.” 

And having turned his thought away from his 
heart, he walked two or three times around the 
room, holding her arm, and afterward sat in the 
window for half an hour with no ill effects. Then, 
evidently afraid she would take to herself and 

230 


NEITHER DEAD NOR SLEEPING 


her bewildering doctrines too much credit for 
this happy condition, he said crossly: 

“Oh, I decided to get well anyhow. I want 
to live long enough to run out that gang of 
coffin-chasers down-stairs. ,, 

Quiet days succeeded one another, and there 
was happiness and harmony in the gray stone cot¬ 
tage on the rocks. To be sure, quite inadvert¬ 
ently, Mary Martha ran into a few curious minor 
incidents that were surprising, a bit amusing, and 
which she could not explain. One morning very 
early she came upon Aunt Tilly sitting on the 
floor in the hall examining the great bear-skin 
rugs which lay there. One night, running down 
to get a bed-time glass of milk for Uncle Bob, 
she was amazed to find Miss Kezzy on her knees 
inspecting the huge fireplace in the dining-room. 
And she was always running upon one or the 
other of them, or Cousin Ben, and once in a while 
even Uncle Penny hobbling about on a stick, in 
all sorts of queer places and secluded corners. 
But between Uncle Bob, who would not let her 

231 


MERRY O 


out of his sight if he could help it, and Steve, 
who was always at hand to claim any idle mo¬ 
ments, and her family in the shingled shack, she 
was far too busy to bother her head with the 
peculiarities of any mere Flesh-and-Bloods. So 
Mary Martha settled herself to a long and happy 
regime, at fifty a week; but this was a rash and 
unwarranted conclusion on her part. 

It was her eighth day in the cottage, memor¬ 
able to Mary Martha because it was the occasion 
of her second receipt of fifty dollars in advance 
for services to be rendered. It was four o’clock 
in the afternoon. Steve, as he did every day, 
brought the mail from the box near the bridge 
and sat beside his uncle’s bed reading his let¬ 
ters and such as there were of his uncle’s, 
usually advertisements of fishing and hunting 
supplies. 

“Say, Unc,” he said suddenly, without look¬ 
ing up from the letter in his hand, “here’s a no¬ 
tice from the government that they’ve had a new 
survey of this district. It puts us a hundred 

232 


NEITHER DEAD NOR SLEEPING 


yards farther north. The county agent posted the 
notices this spring, it says here.” 

Uncle Bob sat up quickly and in a tone of sup¬ 
pressed nervous excitement said: 

“A —a hundred yards! A hundred—you mean 
they take off a hundred yards on the south, 
and— But, Steve, that’ll take the shack down 
on the boulder, won’t it? That’s less than a hun¬ 
dred yards inside this old line.” 

Steve, not noticing his uncle’s excitement, had 
continued with his letters. He nodded his head. 

“Um, that takes the shack. This letter’s from 
Joe Miller in Denver, enclosing the new survey. 
He’s leased the twenty acres below, and is going 
to put up a hunting lodge on the site of the shack. 
He’s sending a contractor up to draw the designs, 
but says if we want to move the lumber off we’re 
welcome to. Or if there’s anything he can use, 
he’ll buy it.—You remember Miller, don’t you, 
Unc?” 

The old man was sitting up in bed, his chin 
drooping, his eyes wrinkled up and anxious. 

233 


MERRY O 


“When, Steve? When?” he gasped, and his 
voice was hoarse. 

Steve looked at him in quick surprise, and 
Mary Martha moved at once to his side and took 
his hand. He pulled it away, without a glance 
in her direction. 

“When, Steve?” he repeated. 

“Does it mean much to him?” interrupted 
Mary Martha quickly. “Does he feel badly about 
it? Perhaps you should not have told him.” 

“Why, it doesn’t mean anything,” said Steve 
promptly. “We built the shack down the river 
when we first bought up here. That was included 
in ours by the old survey, but we knew it wasn’t 
just right. When we were ready to build a per¬ 
manent place, we moved up here. It’s a lot better 
location. We had some great old sport in the 
shack down there, just the same, didn’t we, 
Unc?” 

“He won’t mind then,” said Mary Martha com¬ 
fortably. 

“Oh, not a bit. If they cut off a hundred yards 

234 


NEITHER DEAD NOR SLEEPING 


down there, they’ll give us a hundred more on 
the north. It’s better. It will give us Knob 
Hill, the best hunting in the mountain.” 

Mary Martha settled back, and Steve went on 
with the mail. The old man had drawn beneath 
the covers of the bed, and did not emerge for 
fully half an hour. Certainly, when he came out, 
he looked older, grayer and thinner than when 
he had disappeared. Mary Martha stood beside 
him anxiously. 

“When’s he coming up? Miller. To see about 
building on the boulder?” Uncle Bob asked 
at once. 

“He said immediately. But that may mean 
anything.” 

“It may mean to-morrow,” said his uncle in 
a choking voice. 

“Or it may mean next fall,” assented Steve, 
laughing. 

Mary Martha was concerned on her own ac¬ 
count now. Her family was in comfortable pos¬ 
session of the shingled shack. 

235 


MERRY O 


“What—will he do when he comes up?” shfe 
asked. “The contractor.” 

“They’re going to tear down the shack,” Steve 
explained. “They’ll probably dynamite it. We 
just threw the shack together among the rocks, 
but they’ll have to dynamite to put in a firm foun¬ 
dation for a good cabin.” 

“D—d—dynamite!” gasped the old man. 

“Dynamite!” stammered Mary Martha. 

She got up at once, intending to run down to 
the shack without delay, to put her father on his 
guard, but Uncle Bob turned suddenly refrac¬ 
tory. He complained of a pain and insisted on 
having attention. He had some difficulty in lo¬ 
cating the pain, but finally decided it was in the 
back of his head and Mary Martha sat down be¬ 
side him and gently stroked it. 

“You need never feel pain, you know,” she 
said. “It is preposterous, it is unthinkable, that 
a child of God, made in His image, should be 
required to suffer physical pain. We were given 
dominion, if we choose to hold dominion. We 

236 


NEITHER DEAD NOR SLEEPING 


must drive away every such evil thought.’’ Then, 
turning from New Thought to the formula of 
Auto-Suggestion, she murmured gently, “It’s go¬ 
ing, it’s going, it’s going,” over and over again. 

Hitherto this treatment had been efficacious for 
all his aches and pains, but to-day he snorted 
derisively when she talked and would not be 
pleased with anything. He told her roughly that 
she was pulling his hair out by the roots, and he 
wished she would leave him alone. He decided 
that exercise was what he needed and made them 
assist him to walk about the room. Then he com¬ 
plained that they walked too fast, evidently 
thought he was in training for a foot race, and 
when they went slower he declared that Steve 
was hanging on him. And suddenly he insisted 
on going back to bed, saying he was hungry and 
wanted his supper at once. 

Mary Martha took his petulance good na- 
turedly, accepting his impatience as final proof 
of convalescence, and hurried down to prepare 
his tray. 


237 


MERRY O 


All during the evening he fretted and com¬ 
plained, holding Mary Martha to close attendance. 
She was glad when he at last announced that he 
was sleepy and wished she would go to bed and 
leave him alone. But even then he was not 
satisfied. He objected to her sleeping on the 
cot in his room, saying he was afraid to snore 
because he didn’t want to keep her awake, and 
kept himself awake in the effort. So the cot was 
carried away to the attic room whence it had 
been brought, and Mary Martha moved joyfully 
into the cozy little room adjoining her eccentric 
patient’s on the right, the room she had previ¬ 
ously used to dress in. 

Late as it was, she was tempted to run down 
to the shingled shack for a consultation with her 
father as to the future. But a glance out of the 
one small window her room afforded, the 
clamor of the water over its stony bed below, 
the rocks and mountains and pine-trees faintly 
outlined in the eerie moonlight, settled the ques¬ 
tion. She decided that nothing in the world was 

238 


NEITHER DEAD NOR SLEEPING 


of sufficient importance to tempt her to face alone 
the mysteries of such a night. 

So she turned out the lights in her room, as 
well as those in the hall adjoining, and locked 
the door that led to it. The other door, the one 
connecting with Uncle Bob’s room, she left wide 
open, that she might hear him if he called. 

She lay awake a short while, tired as she was, 
listening to the ceaseless beating of the river, 
comfortable and much at ease in her wide bed 
after the narrow confines of the cot. Except for 
her uncertainty as to the fate of the shingled 
shack she was blissfully content, and in that happy 
frame of mind she fell asleep. 

Something in the night awakened her,—some¬ 
thing, some one, she knew not what. Quickly 
she drew her dressing gown about her, and sat, 
nervous, tense and terrified, although she had 
heard no slightest sound to justify her fears. 
Slipping from her bed, she made her way to the 
door of her patient’s room, which she knew she 
had left open. It was closed. She flashed on 

239 


MERRY O 


the electricity before she opened it and flooded 
the room with light as she entered. 

She could hardly believe the thing she saw. 
Uncle Bob was not in his bed. The covers were 
thrown back. She ran her hand across the sheets 
and found them cold. He had not been there then 
for a long time. She looked in the closet, out 
upon the rocky ledge, down the long shadowy 
hall. He was nowhere to be seen. She was about 
to call for help when she was petrified as into a 
graven image by a sudden piercing scream from 
without. 

“Merry O! Merry O! Merry O!” 

Trembling with fear, she staggered to the win¬ 
dow. A full moon was shining brightly over the 
dark boulders and the pines upon the hills. 
Up the roadway toward the cottage, flying on 
feet made light with wildest terror, came two 
slender figures, clad in shimmering white gowns 
—her sisters, Vivien and Teddy! “Merry O! 
Merry O!” their shrill young voices pierced the 
deep silence of the night. 

240 


NEITHER DEAD NOR SLEEPING 


Mary Martha forgot her patient, forgot his 
mysterious disappearance. Without hesitation 
she clambered over the window-sill out upon the 
rocky ledge, scrambling recklessly downward over 
the rough stones, regardless of bleeding hands 
and knees, and was off in pursuit of her flying 
sisters. 

When Teddy, glancing up in her flight, saw the 
witch-like figure in the flying faded kimono bear¬ 
ing down upon them from the heights, she did 
not pause to reason whom or why, but turned 
from the road with a long despairing wail and 
plunged into the forest, where she flung herself 
upon the ground unable to struggle farther. Vi¬ 
vien even in her own madness did not forget her 
baby sister but turned back at once to rejoin her, 
and when Mary Martha reached them was vainly 
trying to lift Teddy to her feet. 

“Run, run, run,” she begged, “run, Teddy, 
we’ve got to run.” 

“Girls, girls,” cried Merry 0 ; frightened into 
utter panic by their strangely wild behavior. 

241 


MERRY O 


At sight of her there in the forest, Vivien, now 
wholly hysterical, turned about, with both arms 
outstretched, poised for a farther flight into the 
depths of the forest. Mary Martha caught her 
arm. 

“Stop that,” she said sternly, although her teeth 
were chattering. “Don’t be silly. What are you 
doing? What is the matter with Teddy? What 
are you running from? And where is father?” 

Vivien, a total wreck, slid weakly to the 
ground, but Teddy, reassured by the steadiness of 
her sister’s voice, flung herself upon her. 

“G—g—ghosts,” she stammered, in explana¬ 
tion. “G—g—ghosts.” 

Merry O scolded them, shook them, petted 
them, and finally succeeded in restoring them to 
a semblance of sanity so that at last, between 
them, they managed to tell their gruesome tale. 

They had gone to bed, as usual, their father 
in his room, the girls in theirs. In the middle 
of the night they woke up cold with unreasoning 
fear. Together they crept to their father’s room; 

242 



The ghastly figure of a man, holding a lantern 









NEITHER DEAD NOR SLEEPING 


by the moonlight they saw he was not there. As 
they stood in listening uncertainty, they distinctly 
heard beneath them, footsteps, a sound of mov¬ 
ing, a faint scratching among the pebbles in the 
cellar room below. Confident it was their father, 
thinking of nothing else, hand in hand, without 
a word, they had gone bravely down the steps of 
the inside stairway to the little rocky room among 
the boulders, further reassured by the fact that 
through the cracks in the floor, there showed a 
glimmer of light. 

And then, half-way down, bare feet noiseless 
on the stone steps, Teddy cried out sharply, their 
hearts froze, their blood stood still. For in the 
little room among the rocks, they saw,—not their 
father,—but a terrible, ghastly figure of a man, 
holding a lantern before him. He wore, as nearly 
as they could remember, a loose white shirt open 
at the collar, corduroy trousers tucked into boots 
at the knees,—and he was a strange, wild, fear¬ 
ful creature! He stood with his back to them, 
his face set directly toward the huge boulder that 

243 


MERRY O 


formed the north side of the room. One hand 
he held out before him as he walked toward the 
great rock. 

When Teddy shrieked he turned, and—from 
that point in the story all coherence was lost. 
Teddy said he sprang at them, Vivien thought 
he vanished into the air, both agreed that what¬ 
ever he did, it was ghastly. Their father gone, 
believing that in all the great mountains they had 
no one but Merry O, they turned instinctively 
toward her and fled in the direction of the stone 
cottage. 

This was the story as Mary Martha made it 
from their hysterical recital. Vivien was still 
quivering, Teddy sobbing bitterly, and Merry O 
herself felt the clammy chill that comes from 
commerce with things unseen. 

“Probably a camper looking for a place to 
sleep,” she said as cheerfully as she could. “We 
must go back. We must find—” 

And then, clasping both girls in her arms, 
Merry O dropped face downward into the brush, 

244 


NEITHER DEAD NOR SLEEPING 


the three of them a huddled, horrified group, for 
through the noisy rush of waters below they 
could hear swiftly running feet, pounding on the 
rocks, and crashing among the dry pine needles 
that covered the ground. 

Teddy moaned beseechingly. Vivien fainted, 
a limp and lifeless figure in her sister’s arms. 
Merry O bent above them, clasping them both to 
her breast, and waited for what would come. 


CHAPTER XVI 


A PROPOSAL, EN RAPPORT 

H OURS, terrifying hours, it seemed they 
crouched there in helpless terror. The feet 
came swiftly closer, closer, and stopped. Then 
there was a great choking, soul-wrenching sob, 
then a broken exclamation. 

“Thank God! Th—thank God! Th— 5 ” 

And in a moment, they were in their father’s 
arms. 

They kissed one another, they wept, they shiv¬ 
ered, they laughed, and when at last they could 
speak again, and could hear the words that were 
spoken, their father gave his version of the 
strange events of the night. Awakening sud¬ 
denly, he had heard some one, or perhaps some 
animal, prowling about the shack below. A 
fumbling at the lock indicated the nature of the 
visitor. Mr. McAllister had hastily drawn on his 

246 


A PROPOSAL, EN RAPPORT 


clothes, and with his gun hurried down the rus¬ 
tic outside stairway, just in time to see the wide 
garage door, the door of the “cellar-room/' as 
the girls called it, swing open and a strange and 
grizzly figure aureoled from the light of a lantern, 
walk quickly in. Determined to know what the 
man was up to, he hid between the boulders, 
where, from this vantage-point, he could see the 
room plainly, as the door was left open. The 
strange apparition, if such it was, set the lantern 
down, crossed without hesitation to the huge 
boulder on the north side of the room, one hand 
stretched out before him,—and after that, the 
sudden, piercing cry of Teddy, the wild flight of 
the girls through the black forest, the panic- 
stricken father in pursuit! 

“What became of— it?” whispered Mary 
Martha. 

He did not know. When he saw the girls in 
flight toward the forest, he thought of nothing 
but them and waited for nothing further. His 
description of their mysterious visitor tallied with 

247 


MERRY O 


their own,—a loose white shirt, an undershirt, 
their father said it was, gray corduroy trousers 
stuck into high boots, a thin, stooped, haggard 
figure of a man. 

Quickly they set off through the woods return¬ 
ing to the shingled shack, and none too soon, for 
already the morn was faintly dawning. The lock 
their father had put on the lower door was broken 
off, and in the little cellar room the lantern was 
still burning feebly in the pale morning light. 

“It can’t be a ghost, you see,” argued Mary 
Martha. “A ghost would not have a real lantern. 
A ghost’s lantern would disappear with the 
ghost.” 

But no word of hers could convince the girls 
that the creature they had seen was really a 
thing of earth. 

“But the broken lock,” continued Mary Martha. 
“A ghost wouldn’t stop for that. He’d walk 
right through.” 

Logic was well enough in its place, but this was 
not its place. 


248 


A PROPOSAL, EN RAPPORT 


Nothing had been disturbed in the rooms up¬ 
stairs. Timorously exploring, clustered together, 
finding a sort of courage in their number, they 
discovered everything exactly as it had been. 
The girls dressed hurriedly, and Mary Martha 
unearthed an old pair of shoes and a skirt that 
would serve until she could get back to her 
clothes in the stone cottage. 

“You have to leave here to-day,” she told them 
decisively. “A man is coming up immediately 
to dynamite the shack, and you must get away 
at once. I’ll come back after breakfast, and help 
you pack. You certainly can’t stay here another 
night.” 

The girls expressed their entire willingness 
to get away at the earliest possible moment, so 
Mary Martha set off for the gray stone cottage, 
hoping she might in some way win admittance 
without arousing the household, for she was quite 
unable to devise a fitting explanation for her ab¬ 
sence and in such attire. 

She was relieved to find the house seemingly 

249 


MERRY O 


wrapped in silence and in slumber. She felt only 
relief, nothing at all of suspicion, when she saw 
the lower door standing open, and crept grate¬ 
fully within and up the stairs. 

As she had left her hall door locked, in her 
unexpected departure, she was obliged to tip¬ 
toe through Uncle Bob’s room to reach her own. 
To her great relief, he was lying rigid and still 
beneath the blankets, and Mary Martha, rejoic¬ 
ing that her absence and her entrance and all her 
wild adventures of the morning were undiscov¬ 
ered, crept into bed again. 

But Mary Martha did not know that as the 
door closed behind her, Steve stepped out from 
among the pines across the road where he had 
awaited her return, or that his kindly gray eyes 
were troubled. 

She was strangely quiet that morning in her 
early attendance on Uncle Bob, helping him pre¬ 
pare for his breakfast. She was wan and worn, 
her arms were scratched and bruised, and for the 
first time her thoughts were far from her patient. 

250 


A PROPOSAL, EN RAPPORT 


When he spoke suddenly, his sharp voice startled 
her, recalling- her suddenly to the present time 
and place. 

“D—do you believe in ghosts?” 

Mary Martha looked solemnly down at the 
gray face on the pillow. 

“Yes,” she said promptly. “Do you?” 

Evidently suspecting from her manner a latent 
antipathy to the subject of spooks, Uncle Bob 
thought it wise to retire beneath his covers with¬ 
out answer, and Mary Martha, having finished her 
work in the room, went down for his breakfast 
with never another word. 

“IPs a sign of death,” was the sepulchral pro¬ 
nouncement that greeted her as she entered the 
dining-room. “Isn’t it, Miss McAllister? If you 
see spirits floating past you in the middle of 
the night, it’s a sign of death. How’s poor 
Bob?” 

“He seems very well. D—did you see s—spir¬ 
its floating past?” 

“They all scoff at it,” Miss Kezzy went on re- 

251 


MERRY O 


sentfully. “But I’m a religious, God-fearing 
woman, and when spirits see fit to appear to me 
from the world beyond, I know it’s a warning.” 
“Tell me—what did you—” 

“I heard a long wailing sound, a regular 
ghostly sound,” Miss Kezzy declared, and she told 
her story with a fluency achieved from frequent 
repetitions. “It was a kind of an up-and-down 
sound, like a fire siren, and it sounded like it said, 
‘Mer—ry—oh, mer—ry—oh, mer—ry—oh.’ Of 

course that doesn’t mean anything in itself. Tilly, 

* 

you needn’t laugh.” She did not notice that Mary 
Martha had flushed scarlet, nor know that her 
hands had turned icy cold, a nervous state not at 
all relieved by the fact that Steve’s sober gray 
eyes were fixed upon her. “I think likely it’s a 
symbol, or maybe a signal that spirits understand. 
Anyhow, it was that general up-and-down, wail¬ 
ing tone—'Mer—ry—oh, mer—ry—oh.’ I can 
see the road from my bed, by turning over, which 
I did, and down the road came two spirits in long 
white flowing robes that faded away into nothing. 

252 


A PROPOSAL, EN RAPPORT 


They weren’t walking, you understand, their 
hands were outstretched and they were sort of 
flying ” 

“How about wings ?” Steve interrupted. 

“I didn’t really see the wings, not to notice ’em 
specially, that is, but maybe the flowing draperies 
hid ’em. The first was a little spirit, the second 
a bigger spirit, and seems like they was calling 
all the spirits to a meetin’ or something. For the 
first thing you know off from the other side of 
the road another one came floating down, and 
went after ’em up the road, and they were all 
chanting the same: ‘Mer—ry—oh, mer—ry— 
oh.’ ” 

“She dreamed it,” said Aunt Tilly scornfully. 
“There ain’t no ghosts. She’s always seeing 
something.” 

“Know anything about spiritualism, Miss Mc¬ 
Allister?” asked Steve suddenly. “Got any books 
on ghosts, along with your other er—psychic 
raptures?” 

“No, nothing.” Mary Martha was glad tq 

253 


MERRY O 


busy herself with breakfast, leaving the others to 
debate whether spirits walk or only fly. 

As soon as she had finished her morning’s 
work, Mary Martha went into the woods osten¬ 
sibly to meditate, but really, as soon as out of 
sight of the cottage, to hurry down to the shingled 
shack that she might speed their preparations for 
departure. Certainly they must immediately and 
irrevocably remove themselves beyond reach of 
the alarming mysteries that encompassed the 
stone house on the hill. 

She found the girls already deep in their pack¬ 
ing, their eagerness to be away from the shack 
overtopping even her own. Their plan was to 
leave the Ford in its temporary lodgment among 
the rocks, where, as it would not move under its 
own power, and as the road had long since been 
abandoned, it was plainly safe from predatory 
motorists. Mary Martha intended to deliver it 
into the kindly hands of Steve for mechanical 
ministrations, once the family was safely out of 
the way. They would, with all their worldly pos- 

254 


A PROPOSAL, EN RAPPORT 


sessions, go down to the city that very afternoon 
on the two o'clock stage and find temporary, in¬ 
expensive lodgings where they would remain until 
Mary Martha had served out her nurseship. 

She spent several hours helping them pack, and 
then, promising to be at the upper road bridge by 
two o’clock to wave them a last farewell, and 
cautioning them not to stop the stage to speak to 
her, as the road at that point was in plain view 
of the windows in the gray stone cottage, said 
good-by and hurried back to her work. 

To her surprise she found Uncle Bob up and 
dressed and stalking grimly about the room, alone 
and unassisted. He said gruffly that he decided 
she knew what she was talking about when she 
said he wouldn’t have another spell if he quit 
looking forward to one, and he had quit. 

She praised him warmly, and then asked teas- 
ingly, “But how in the world will you shoot out 
of sight when you have no blankets to hide 
you?” 

He looked longingly about, wishing for the 

255 


MERRY O 


shelter of the sheets at that moment. Then he 
suddenly lowered his chin almost out of sight, 
into the soft collar of his shirt, and wrinkled up 
his eyes, tightly shut. 

Mary Martha laughed at the exhibition. 
“Thanks awfully for the demonstration,” she 
said. “Same general effect as an ostrich sticking 
his head in the sand.” 

At two o’clock, as she had promised, she stood 
on the bridge by the cross-road, sadly waving her 
hand as long as the stage was in sight,—sadly, 
yet glad to have her family safely away from the 
shingled shack, which now seemed even more 
mysterious than the gray stone cottage. 

She cried a little when the stage had disap¬ 
peared, for she felt very helpless and alone— 
not knowing that from a safe shelter Steve was 
watching her farewells. For a little while, she 
gave herself up to her loneliness and her regrets, 
and then, her sadness having spent itself, she 
dried her eyes and set off briskly toward the 

256 


A PROPOSAL, EN RAPPORT 

house. Almost immediately she was joined by 
Steve. 

“Miss McAllister,” he began earnestly, “will 
you—would you—I think it would be an awfully 
good idea for us to get married. Don’t you? It 
would—” 

Mary Martha stopped short and stared at 

him. 

“Why, Mr. Steve,” she stammered confusedly. 
“Are you—you don’t mean that for a proposal, 
do you?” 

“Yes, that is what I mean it for. I intended to 
wait a little longer, but—” He laughed awk¬ 
wardly. “What I mean is, it would make things 
such a lot easier getting rid of that gang at the 
house, and taking care of Uncle Bob,—and be¬ 
sides,—if—maybe there are—things—that both¬ 
er you a little, you might feel more like telling 
me, if we were married.” 

Mary Martha caught his hand quickly. She 
was glowing. “That’s lovely,” she said warmly. 
“That’s wonderful.” 


257 



MERRY O 


He laughed, yet more awkwardly. “Oh, I am 
—awfully er—crazy about you, too, you know. 
It isn’t missionary work by a long shot. Every¬ 
thing in me just seemed to sort of—call out—to 
everything in you, the very moment I saw you.” 

She nodded, with ready understanding. “I 
know. It’s our vibrations. I noticed it too. It’s 
psychic phenomena. They call it en rapport” 

Steve wanted to put his arms around Mary 
Martha, to kiss the lovely red lips, to pillow the 
golden head upon his shoulder. But Mary Martha 
looked at him with such steadiness, with such 
friendly, implicit confidence,—he was thrilled, but 
he was deterred. 

And Mary Martha said, “We’d better hurry. 
Uncle Bob is awfully fussy to-day, and I’ve been 
out so much.” 

They walked together rapidly and in silence to 
the very door, but as Steve put his hand on the 
knob, she touched his arm and said shyly, with 
an adorable flush that dyed her lovely face and 
throat. 


258 


A PROPOSAL, EN RAPPORT 


“Oh, Mr. Steve,—I didn’t—I didn’t—reject 
you, you know.” Steve had to smile at the naive 
assurance. “I—I just didn’t answer at all.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


ANOTHER OPENING DOOR 

A SSUREDLY there was no accounting for 
the vagaries of Uncle Bob. With Steve’s 
hand yet on the knob, the door opened suddenly 
and to their astonishment Uncle Bob himself 
confronted them, very gaunt, very gray, but full 
of a dogged determination quite unlike his former 
shrinking timidity. 

“Get the car, Steve,” he ordered curtly. “I’ve 
got to do a little errand.” 

Behind Uncle Bob in the doorway appeared 
now the exclamatory and expostulating quartette, 
the Flesh-and-Bloods. 

“Flying right in the face of Providence, I tell 
you,” declared Uncle Penny shrilly. 

“ ’Course, for all we know, maybe he wants to 
die, and be done with it,” wailed Aunt Tilly. 

260 


ANOTHER OPENING DOOR 


“When you see spirits flying in the dead of 
night, it’s a solemn sign of death,” Miss Kezzy 
reiterated again and again. 

Steve took hold of his uncle’s arm. “Come 
along up to bed, Unc,” he said firmly but with his 
usual gentleness. “You can get all the air you 
need from the window.” 

“I’m not looking for air. I’ve had too much 
air already. Air’s all I do get, too, with my nurse 
that I pay a good salary to, and my nephew that 
might be showing me some attention at the point 
of death, both of ’em gallivantin’ in the moun¬ 
tains. I reckon maybe you didn’t hear me when 
I says, 'Get that car.’ ” 

Steve turned helplessly to Mary Martha. 

“Get it, of course,” she said at once. “If he 

t 

has set his heart on a little drive, it won’t hurt 
him a bit. Maybe it will do him good. I’ll go 
along.” 

For Mary Martha had noticed that Uncle Bob 
was wearing a pair of gray corduroy trousers, 
stuffed at the knees into high boots! She mar- 

261 


MERRY O 


veled at her stupidity! Why had she not sus¬ 
pected this before? 

A few minutes later, Steve tore around the 
corner of the house in his little black roadster, 
and they very carefully assisted Uncle Bob into 
his seat, although indeed he required small assist¬ 
ance. Every movement on his part now was 
marked with feverish energy and haste. Two 
bright splotches of red were burning in his cheeks 
and his gray eyes glittered fiercely. As they 
started slowly away, Miss Kezzy rushed after 
the car, holding out her own precious bottle of 
smelling salts as one last precaution. Uncle Bob 
tore it from her hand and flung it on the boulders 
beyond her, where it crashed into dust and splint¬ 
ers. 

This reduced Miss Kezzy to abject terror, 
and she ran cowering back into the house, quite 
convinced that, at last, as she had expected, poor 
Bob was completely mad. 

Steve drove carefully, and would have taken 
the upper trail across the bridge, which was much 

262 


ANOTHER OPENING DOOR 


smoother, but at the cross-road Uncle Bob indi¬ 
cated the lower turn. 

“This is better, Unc,” he remonstrated. “The 
rocks—” 

“Ain’t you got a few books, miss, on folks do¬ 
ing as they are told and not talking back? Let 
Steve read ’em,” said Uncle Bob testily, and Mary 
Martha laughed as Steve took the lower road 
without further argument. 

It was perhaps some twenty yards above the 
shingled shack that he told Steve to stop the car, 
and when this was done, the old man hesitated a 
moment, regarding them with speculating eyes. 
Presently he seemed to reach a decision. 

“Steve, I want out. I’m going to walk down 
the road a piece, with my nurse here. You turn 
the car and pull up a little ways and wait for 
us.” 

“Why, Uncle Bob—” 

The old man glared at him in sullen anger. 

“But, Uncle, why not let me—” 

“Because, I said for you to turn around and 

263 


MERRY O 


pull up a piece, and I meant it.” Without waiting 
for assistance, Uncle Bob got himself stiffly out 
of the car. Mary Martha followed, but paused 
a moment to wish that Steve was going with 
them on that errand “down the road.” She knew 
now that Uncle Bob was about to repeat his vain 
errand of the night before, and while she re¬ 
joiced in her discretion at having hurried the 
family away to town, she hesitated nervously. 

“I’m going,” Uncle Bob called back indignantly 
over his shoulder, and indeed he had started 
stiffly down the road alone. 

“Don’t go far,” Steve whispered. “Watch 
him. I’ll be within call. Be careful.” 

“I think I said my nurse was coming along,” 
called the old man again impatiently, for he was 
staggering weakly in the path. 

Mary Martha ran quickly after him and 
steadied his steps with her strong arm, relieved 
to know that Steve would be watching and wait¬ 
ing, within sound of her voice, should she call. 

As she expected, Uncle Bob turned heavily up 

264 


ANOTHER OPENING DOOR 


the steep path that led to the shingled shack, and 
entered the cellar room among the boulders. The 
lantern stood in a corner among the rocks where 
she herself had put it. With a forced lightness 
of tone, really in an effort to drive away her 
nervousness, she said: 

“You forgot your lantern last night, didn’t 
you ?” 

The old man gave her a straight steady glance, 
withdrawing his chin into his collar and squinting 
up both eyes. 

“You’re pretty smart,” he said, chuckling 
mirthlessly. “You don’t miss much, do you? No 
wonder you believe in ghosts.” He kicked the 
lantern aside. 

And then Mary Martha was sole witness to a 
strange scene. He glanced quickly about the 
room, stood at the foot of the stairway listening, 
evidently not forgetful of the startling appari¬ 
tions that had descended the night before, and 
then he turned about, as the girls had said, and 
walked straight toward the huge boulder, almost 

265 


MERRY O 


as though—a wraith indeed—he intended to pass 
directly through the solid mass. He stopped in 
the face of it—a huge gray solid slab—and ex¬ 
tended his right hand, pressing it firmly against 
the surface of the stone. 

Mary Martha, following his movements with 
deepest interest, could see no faintest scratch nor 
line to indicate the spot he touched, and yet, at 
his pressure, the very heart of the rock trembled 
and then moved slowly out from its place, disclos¬ 
ing a small secret safe most ingeniously fash¬ 
ioned. 

Mary Martha laughed delightedly at this 
strange and unexpected denouement, but even as 
she laughed the old man staggered back as from 
a blow, then pressing forward again, he bent 
down pitifully, thrusting both hands into the little 
cleft in the rock and when he drew them out, 
stared at them, unbelieving. 

"Gone!” he cried, both hands outstretched be¬ 
fore his face. "Gone! It is gone!” 

Mary Martha ran to support him, flinging her 

266 


ANOTHER OPENING DOOR 


arm quickly about his shoulders afraid he would 
fall. Suddenly he straightened, and a grim, 
gaunt, ominous expression settled over his thin 
face. Again he pressed the rock, and the hidden 
door swung back in its place, with never so much 
as a scratch to show where it had been. The old 
man turned on Mary Martha, his sunken gray 
eyes sullen and fierce. 

“You don’t miss much, and that’s a fact,” he 
said cuttingly. “You got on to the hang of things 
around here in a hurry, I must say.” 

Mary Martha was appalled at his sudden 
change of manner toward her. As he started to¬ 
ward her in a sudden rage, she retreated quickly 
before him until she stood with her back against 
the wall. 

“That’s my money,” he said in a low menacing 
voice. “It’s mine. You give it here.” 

“Uncle Bob,—please—” she stammered. 

The old man put his hand into his hip pocket 
and drew out a little square revolver. “I’m not 
going to shoot,” he said scornfully, as she covered 

267 


MERRY O 


her face with her hands and shrank from him. 
“Fm no fool. I won’t shoot, but you never get 
out of my sight from this minute, until you give 
me every cent you took out of that cache.” 

“Uncle Bob,” she said, more bravely since he 
had disclaimed all intention of using the gun. 
“Listen, I will tell you everything I know,—but 
I don’t know a thing—” 

“I don’t care what you know. I don’t want 
to hear any talking. I want that money. It’s 
mine. I want the money and nothing else.” 

Mary Martha shook her head despairingly. 
“Money,” she repeated. “I know nothing about 
any money. I don’t know what you are talking 
about, I don’t—” 

“You knew about my lantern slick enough,” 
he interrupted. 

“Yes, because—” 

“The money! Just give me the money,” he 
broke in shortly. 

Mary Martha gave way to tears and sobs, 
which grew heavier as she heard quick steps corn- 

268 


ANOTHER OPENING DOOR 


ing up the rocky path outside, and Steve swung 
up into the open door. 

“Steve, help me,” she sobbed. But as he 
started toward her, his uncle quickly interfered. 

“I ain’t hurt her, Steve. Mind your own busi¬ 
ness. I’m not going to hurt her. Take us home.” 

“But—” 

Uncle Bob’s fearful, menacing eyes had never 
left Mary Martha’s face. “You know what I 
want,” he said. “You do as I told you, and you 
can get out, and the sooner the better. No talk¬ 
ing. Just do as I told you and say nothing.” 

In silence, Steve holding Mary Martha’s hand, 
they retraced their way to the car, the old man 
with the little revolver swinging loose in his hand, 
scorning to hold it aimed against her. Steve 
helped his uncle into the car first, and Mary 
Martha beside him. 

“Listen, Unc,” he said slowly, before he started 
the motor. “I don’t know what’s going on. I 
don’t know what’s happened. But I love Mary 
Martha. Pm going to marry her.” 

269 


MERRY O 


The old man wavered a little, but resolutely 
steeled himself again. “She’s a slick one, Steve,” 
he said. “She fooled us both good and pretty. 
You won’t want her, when you know what I 
know.” And then to Mary Martha, “It’s your 
move now, miss. I’ve not another word to say.” 

Poor Mary Martha! So hopefully she had 
followed every trail where Fortune seemed to 
lead her, so jauntily she had crossed the threshold 
of every door as Opportunity held it wide! 
And this last opening door,—did it lead her trust¬ 
ing footsteps to a gloomy prison in the little stone 
house by the mountain river? 


CHAPTER XVIII 


A PRISONER OF FATE 

T HE return to the house was a humiliating 
one for Mary Martha who had started out 
so happily such a little while before. It was 
Steve now who assisted Uncle Bob, trembling 
and weak and scarcely able to stand, while Mary 
Martha was ordered to precede them, like a cul¬ 
prit in very truth. They were greeted with cries 
of surprise from the quartette of relatives await¬ 
ing their return, cries quickly changed to a deep 
and awesome silence as they saw the turn affairs 
had taken. 

Sick, suffering as he was, the stern old man 
would not relax his vigilance until he personally 
saw to it that the door leading from Mary 
Martha's room to the hall was rigidly bolted and 
barred from without, so that her only means of 
exit from her room lay through his own. 

271 


MERRY O 


The room which had been given to her was 
admirably adapted for prison purposes. It was 
small, and had but one window, which looked 
down on a sheer drop to the rocks and the rush¬ 
ing river two stories below, closing all hope of 
escape in that direction. And when Uncle Bob 
was finally persuaded to return to bed, he signifi¬ 
cantly placed the ugly square revolver within easy 
reach of his hand. 

The tumult down-stairs was indescribable, but 
Uncle Bob vouchsafed no word of explanation, 
and from long knowledge of Steve, they well 
knew it was hopeless to look to him for informa¬ 
tion. Steve carried down word for his uncle that 
they were to get busy, and provide food for them 
all without delay, and that he and Mary Martha 
were to be served with trays in their rooms. 

Once Uncle Bob called in to Mary Martha. 

‘Til give you a thousand cash for the bag, 
nurse,” he said hopefully. 

“I never heard of any bag,” she protested. ‘T 
don’t know what you are talking about.” 

272 


A PRISONER OF FATE 


“Five thousand, if you like, and not a word to 
any one,” he pleaded. 

Mary Martha could only shake her head. But 
she sat at her window, looking out at the shadows 
purpling the hills, above the riotous roaring of 
the river on the rocks below, and she breathed 
deeply, consciously inhaling courage, hope and 
faith. And she felt herself restored. After the 
first abandonment to fear and to wounded pride, 
Mary Martha was herself again. She had tried 
very hard, she had done her best in every way, 
and even out of chaos such as this, only good 
could come. 

The dinner sent up by the Flesh-and-Bloods 
was not to his liking, used as Uncle Bob was to 
Mary Martha’s fastidious catering to his taste. 
“I must say, I miss a good job of cooking,” he 
muttered to himself discontentedly. 

Mary Martha heard it and smiled. “Oh, well,” 
she called in answer, “if you’d rather have a bad 
prisoner than a good cook, it’s your choosing.” 

Upon the tray with her dinner she found a note 

273 


MERRY O 


from Steve, who had been rigidly barred from 
her room by his uncle. 


“Don’t be afraid, Mary Martha. He won’t 
hurt you, and I’ll see you through. I’ll go to town 
first thing to-morrow and get a license, and bring 
a preacher with me. We’ll get married right 
away, and then he can settle his score with me.” 

Mary Martha kissed it, her first love-letter. She 
desired Steve at that moment more than anything 
else in the world, but she would not even think 
of escaping from the dilemma by marriage. It 
was her honor that was under fire. This puzzling 
enigma must first be explained. She had thought 
of trying to escape. Steve’s note forever settled 
that. She would not run away, she would stay 
in the gray stone cottage, a prisoner if need be, 
for weary years on years, until events had ac¬ 
quitted her and she was free to marry Steve. 

For, reviewing all the long way she had 
traveled, the entire tortuous road from New 
Paris, Iowa, to her little prison room above the 

274 


A PRISONER OF FATE 


river, Mary Martha knew now whither all the 
leading had tended. It was to Steve, who waited 
for her at the end of the road. 

Acting upon impulse she went in to Uncle Bob 
and told him her decision, hoping that the an¬ 
nouncement of her plan to wait and to marry 
Steve, would induce him to give her the freedom 
of the house at least. But he was steadfast in his 
determination to hold her prisoner. 

“You’ll never marry my Steve,” he said sternly. 
“Don’t figure on it. Not Steve, when he knows 
what I know.” 

Mary Martha was positive. “Oh, yes, I will 
marry him. I’ve made up my mind.” 

“There’s ways of changing women’s minds,” 
he said, and would add nothing further. In reply 
to her plea for information about “the money,” 
“the bag” and the “cache in the rock,” he turned 
a deaf ear. 

“You know too much already,” he said. “Just 
give me back what’s mine, that’s all I ask.” 

She noticed in him, as in many men of great 

275 


MERRY O 


timidity and reserve, that in an emergency calling 
for decisive action every trace of nervous hesita¬ 
tion disappeared. His voice was clear, low and 
curt. His hands were steady. He no longer re¬ 
sorted to the blankets to hide a boyish confusion. 

Before she retired for the night, she made one 
further effort to make her peace. 

“Will you just let me tell you how I knew about 
the lantern?” she asked. “Just that much, Uncle 
Bob.” 

“I’ll let you tell me where you put that money 
you took out of my cache,” he said. “That’s the 
only talking I want.” 

“Then will you confide in Steve?” she begged. 
“You know you can trust him. Tell him, and 
he will help us both.” 

“Steve’s got to keep out of this. If there’s 
any trouble—about my hoarding gold—it was 
none of his doing, miss, remember that.” His 
tone was stubbornness itself, and what he said 
meant nothing at all to Mary Martha, who did 
not understand. 


276 


A PRISONER OF FATE 


When she went to bed she patiently treated 
herself with every method she knew for insuring 
peace, serenity and confidence, but still she could 
not sleep. So she knelt beside her bed, in a broad 
shaft of moonlight from the window, and re¬ 
peated, aloud but very, very softly, the Lord’s 
Prayer, which she knew to be the never-failing 
panacea for all sorrow to any trusting heart. 

In the morning, really prompted by force of 
habit, she hurried in to assist Uncle Bob as soon 
as she was dressed. His eyes were shadowed 
with black, his face was gray and drawn. Plainly 
he had not slept. 

“I’m sorry. I’m awfully sorry,” she said 
gently. “Will you let me—help you a little—the 
way I did before? You aren’t afraid I will do 
you any harm, are you?” 

“Well, seeing’s I’ve paid you a week in ad¬ 
vance, I don’t know but I might as well work it 
out of you. My vibrations are—away below 
par,” he admitted, and then, furious at his own 
facetious tone, he slid at once under cover. 

277 


MERRY O 


Mary Martha was jubilant. He was weaken¬ 
ing, she knew he was weakening. A little more 
softening, and he would open his heart to her. 
But her joy faded a little when he said sharply 
from beneath the blankets. 

“Don’t go to taking any liberties, miss. I got 
my gun under here, just the same.” 

Steve came up while Mary Martha was arrang¬ 
ing the blankets of the bed. He too looked pale 
and haggard. 

“How’re you, Uncle Bob?” he said. “You look 
as if you’d missed your nurse.” 

Then, with boyish defiance, he crossed to Mary 
Martha’s side, and held out his hand. When she 
put hers within it, shyly, he said, “Good morning, 
dearest,” bashfully but with grim determination, 
and put his arms about her, and kissed her. Mary 
Martha clung to his arm, and cried a little, ner¬ 
vously. 

“Steve,” she whispered, “you believe me, don’t 
you? I haven’t done a thing, honestly I haven’t 
•—do you—” 


278 


A PRISONER OF FATE 


Steve caressed her tenderly, pressing his lips 
against her golden curls, grateful that his uncle, 
with his wretched haggard eyes, remained below 
the sheets. 

With rare consideration, he cleared his throat, 
gruffly, before he ventured out, and when he ap¬ 
peared, Mary Martha slipped tearfully away to 
her room to compose herself. Steve was wonder¬ 
ful, she told herself gratefully, he was wonder¬ 
ful, he was heavenly,—after all, it was worth 
everything,—the suspicions, the insults, the un¬ 
certainties, if in the end it opened the way to a 
life of happiness—with Steve. 

In the meantime, Steve was trying to wheedle 
his uncle into reason. “See here, Uncle Bob, tell 
me what's up. Come on, be a sport. I’ve got a 
right to know. What happened in the shack?" 

“I'm not talking, Steve, the time for talking's 
over." 

“But what do you think poor Mary Martha—" 

“I don’t think anything—I know. When that 
girl comes across, all right, but until she does—" 

279 



MERRY O 


“But you talk in riddles. I can’t make head 
nor tail of it. Do you think Mary Martha is a 
thief?” 

“If you can’t make heads nor tails, it’s as it 
should be. We’ll keep it there. It was my doings 
in the beginning, maybe I was wrong, I’m not 
saying. Just remember, you saw nothing, you 
heard nothing, and you did nothing. Remember 
that.” 

“Unc, you know if there’s any trouble ahead 
of you, I’m right with you. What hits you, hits 
us both. But if it’s only trouble for her, for 
Mary Martha, I am going to marry her.” 

Uncle Bob slid desperately out of sight, and 
Steve went slowly ( down-stairs. He had eaten 
no breakfast, but immediately they heard the low 
thrum of his roadster and in a moment saw the 
black car tearing out to the road in a streak of 
dust. 

Her equanimity quite restored, Mary Martha 
tenderly assisted Uncle Bob with his breakfast, 
read the head-lines of the morning papers to him, 

280 


A PRISONER OF FATE 


though he heard not a word of it, and then helped 
him to the chair beside the window, 

“You have your good points, all right,” he 
acknowledged grudgingly, as she deftly tucked a 
pillow behind his shoulder. 

“Pm going to be so good to you, you’ll have to 
love me,” she declared. “It would be awful if 
you didn’t love Steve’s—wife,” she hesitated, 
flushing rosily over the word, and Uncle Bob, 
having left the shelter of his blankets, sank 
quickly into his collar and squinted up his eyes. 

The emotions of the Flesh-and-Bloods were in¬ 
describable. To know that strange, mysterious, 
momentous, dreadful, perhaps even murderous 
projects were being carried out right over their 
heads, and they kept huddled below like silly 
sheep, was more than the Born Relations could 
endure. All during the morning they kept up a 
heated discussion as to a reasonable method of 
approach to the seat of action and at last in a 
body decided to stand upon their rights of rela¬ 
tionship and demand a full explanation. After 

281 


MERRY O 


which, they could sit in judgment as a board and 
decide whether things were right and lawful. 

So all together, Uncle Penny still hobbling on 
a stick to spare his bruised ankle, they trooped 
up the stairs, Aunt Tilly, Miss Kezzy, Cousin 
Ben and Uncle Penny, the women well in the lead, 
as women by rights should be. Twice on the way 
they stopped to discuss the advisability of this 
approach, but finally, with a brave assumption of 
courage, they sailed down the hall and clustered 
at the open door of the sick room. Uncle Bob 
was lying flat in his bed, and beside him Mary 
Martha, in a low chair, was carefully filling his 
pipe with tobacco. 

Uncle Bob, seeing them at the door, shuffled 
his shoulders more squarely down on the pillow, 
and with seeming carelessness, but deadly signifi¬ 
cance, shoved the little revolver into plainer view. 

“Bob—Brother Bob,” began Aunt Tilly, flut¬ 
tering like a hen in a drizzling rain, “Brother 
Bob, we’ve a duty to—” 

“Cousin Bob, we’ve decided to stand on—•” 

282 


A PRISONER OF FATE 


“It’s not as if we were strangers, Bob, being 
flesh and—” 

The old man suddenly squinted through his re¬ 
volver at the group in the door. “Any choice as 
to which goes first, nurse?” he asked hoarsely. 
“Just state your favorite. I’m a good shot.” 

They retreated at once in disorder, but beyond 
the range of the bed stopped to revive their shat¬ 
tered morale. 

“He won’t shoot.” 

“He don’t dare shoot.” 

“I bet it’s not loaded anyhow.” 

“He’s too sick to shoot.” 

They fluttered back, more feebly. “Brother 
Bob,” said Aunt Tilly anxiously. “One thing 
I’ve got to say, one and only one. If you told 
that chit of a child where you hid the fortune 
instead of telling tried and true blood relations, 
born and bred, well, dying’s too good for the man 
that would do it.” 

There was a sudden sinister lowering of Uncle 
Bob’s heavy gray brows, and his sternness 

283 


MERRY O 


brooked no further liberty. Abashed, with smol¬ 
dering rage, the relatives were put to flight. 

“I didn’t tell you of my own will,” he said 
bitterly, when they were alone, “and yet I’d have 
sworn I could trust you. You!—You, who cleaned 
the cache.” 

His voice broke, and he slipped beneath the 
blanket. Mary Martha put her hand on his shoul¬ 
der comfortingly, with tender sympathy. He 
brushed it angrily aside. 

“Go to your room and stay there,” he ordered, 
and very sadly she obeyed. 


CHAPTER XIX 


THE SECRET OF THE STONE CACHE 

I T WAS but a little after noon when the black 
roadster in its accompanying cloud of dust 
whirled back up the narrow road to the cottage, 
and almost before the motor was silent Steve was 
in the house and up the stairs. He did not even 
see the humiliated, wounded, wondering group of 
relatives, in his haste to reach his uncle’s room. 

“I want Mary Martha,” he said, without pre¬ 
amble as he entered, and called her name. 

She came in timidly, and looked with diffidence 
toward the stern old man who had banished her 
such a little time before, but he offered no objec¬ 
tion to her presence. 

“I got a license, Mary Martha,” Steve ex¬ 
plained quickly. “So we can get married. The 
minister was not at home, but I left word for him 
to come here as soon as he gets back. It may be 

285 


MERRY O 


late this afternoon, but he will be here to-day. Is 
that all right ?” 

The old man stirred nervously on the bed, pick¬ 
ing at the blankets with fingers that trembled. 

Mary Martha shook her head. “I love you, 
Steve,—I forgot to tell you before. I love you 
—very much. I think you’re perfectly wonder¬ 
ful.” Her lips were quivering. “I’d rather marry 
you than anything else in the world. But I can’t 
—until your uncle knows he is making a mis¬ 
take.” 

“But, Mary Martha, let me settle it for you. 
Marry me, and then the reckoning—” 

She shook her head more firmly. “I will not 
go away,” she assured him. “They couldn’t drive 
me away. I don’t know what can have happened 
to change him so, but whatever it is, I had noth¬ 
ing to do with it. And as soon as your uncle 
knows this, then—I’ll just love to—do it, if you 
still want me.” 

“Steve, you can’t marry her. I did a— Well, 
you might say I made a fool of myself, in a way. 

286 


THE SECRET OF THE CACHE 


Anyhow it was unpatriotic. But Ed been through 
one spell of hard times, and I swore I’d never 
go through another, and I swore I wouldn’t let 
you, Steve.” 

Steve dropped into a chair beside the bed with¬ 
out a word, motioning Mary Martha to do the 
same. He knew his uncle, and realized that only 
by letting him follow the impulse of the moment 
would they ever get to the bottom of this mystery. 

“I had some land and houses, you know about 
that. But come hard times, you can’t get money 
on land and houses. You young folks don’t know 
what starvation hard times is like. It’s only us 
that went through ’em. When the war began 
they said, ‘Everybody turn in your gold.’ But 
long before that, I was getting ready, before we 
ever got in the war I saw it was coming, and I 
was working ahead. I got all I could together, 
gold whenever I could work it, and silver, turn¬ 
ing everything I could into cash.—I was slick 
about it, Steve, dragging it together a little at a 
time so they wouldn’t catch on to what I was 

287 


MERRY O 


doing.—That was for you, Steve. I thought 
when you come through the war, you’d have to 
have something to start on if times were hard 
like we figured.” 

He spoke slowly, Uncle Bob, and his voice was 
feeble, but steady. He seemed relieved that at 
last he was in the midst of a confidence. Steve 
sat motionless at his side, his sympathetic friendly 
eyes upon his uncle’s face, and Mary Martha al¬ 
most held her breath, so fearful she was of break¬ 
ing the spell. 

“You can see she don’t love you, Steve,” he 
went on. “She’d never hold out on you if she 
loved you, for anybody’d know that what I had 

was for you. Well, I got it together, a bit at a 

\ 

time, a nice lot, a hundred and thirty thousand, 
Steve, mostly gold and silver, but of course some 
notes, and I put it in a leather bag. I made that 
bag myself, Steve, out of that first leather hunt¬ 
ing coat you had, and that you outgrew in no 
time. It made a good bag. I had a cache—I 
made that cache myself, too, Steve, I wasn’t trust- 

288 


THE SECRET OF THE CACHE 


ing a thing to outsiders. I made it right in the 
solid rock, Steve, to work on a spring, in the big 
boulder down below the shack where we kept the 
car. Nobody’d find that cache, Steve, in a million 
years. I worked on it months getting it just 
right.” 

He closed his eyes, and lay very still for a mo¬ 
ment, while his breathless auditors sat spellbound. 

“Well, when we come up here, I left it there. 
I didn’t have a cache up here in the first place, 
besides by then there was rumors going around 
that I was misering gold, and you know how a 
miser draws spies. I figured that anybody’d nat¬ 
urally expect a miser to carry his bag along with 
him. So I left it there in the boulder. That’s 
where I fooled ’em, and a good job, too.—A good 
job, until she come.—But I began, kind of grad¬ 
ual, fixing up another cache up here, like the one 
down there. Cute, too, Steve, better than the 
other, it will be when it’s finished.—Only now 
there’s nothing to hide.—It opens two ways, 
Steve, the new one, outside the window in the 

289 


MERRY O 


rock, and another spring that works in the* wains¬ 
coting under my bed, so I could swing it two ways 
in a pinch.—That’s why I was under the bed, 
nurse, that morning, looking to see if anything 
had touched it off, accidental. ,, 

His voice was much weaker, and the perspira¬ 
tion stood out on his forehead. Mary Martha 
looked pleadingly at Steve, fearing the effect of 
further effort, but Steve shook his head sternly, 
determined to get the last thread of the story. 

“Well, then I had that nasty spell, and that 
gang down-stairs come in on me waiting for my 
remains. But I said nothing to any one, waiting 
to get myself together. But the day I had that 
bad attack, I thought I was a goner, and I knew 
nobody’d ever find the money in the cache down 
there, Steve, and it seemed I’d just cheated you 
out of your chance. I tried to tell them. I said 
'The money—the money—I hid it—’ And that 
minute I toppled over like dead, and didn’t come 
to for three days. 

“Well, you know the gang, Steve. They all 

290 


THE SECRET OF THE CACHE 


began clamoring and sneaking and prying around 
to find where I hid it, but when I saw I made 
fair to pull through, I told 'em nothing. I wrote 
it on a paper for you, Steve, in case I died unex¬ 
pected, and sealed it, and Eve had it right here in 
my shirt from that minute. But I told nothing 
to any one. I just waited my time. But Penny 
had sort of got next to me working about in the 
rocks on the ledge, and he come pryin' up there 
nights feeling his way. But I didn't know then 
if it was Penny or Ben. I heard him that night— 
that’s when I heaved your book, nurse, and scared 
him away. And then I put tacks out to catch him 
unexpected, 'cause I knew he had to be prowling 
sock-footed,—and I caught him fair enough, miss, 
as you know. 

“See, Steve, I figured on getting it up from the 
cache, and disposing it about careless-like, part 
in the new cache here, some in one bank, some in 
another, and some of it put into bonds, before 
you come into possession, so if any one did get 
suspicious and check up on me, and find I'd been 

291 


MERRY O 


holding it out through the war, they couldn’t fix 
it against you. That’s why I said nothing one 
way or the other, Steve, there’s such a thing as 
being too frank and outspoken, and I knew if 
you knew nothing you couldn’t admit anything. 
But when we got word the government had cut 
off the shack in the new survey, and that Miller 
was planning to build on the boulders, I was in a 
sweat to get the money.” 

His voice faltered, and he moved his fingers 
weakly, faintly. 

“Steve, please,” begged Mary Martha. “He’s 
not able. Let it wait till to-morrow.” 

Steve put his arm around his uncle’s shoulder, 
and took his weak hand in his strong clasp. 

“Yes, Unc,” he said gently, “take it easy. Talk 
as slow as you like,—but go on, Unc.” 

“I knew then, sick or no sick, I had to get down 
to the cache for the money, ’cause if they set to 
blasting as you said, they’d blast our gold to Davy 
Jones.—She was too slick for me, Steve.—I don’t 
know—how she got it out of me, maybe I talked 

292 


THE SECRET OF THE CACHE 


in my sleep, maybe she hypnotized me from those 
books she’s always quoting and those charms she 
keeps muttering under her breath, I don’t know. 
—She went down at night—she was out hours 
that night, Steve, you know it.—I saw you wait¬ 
ing across in the pines till she came.—But some¬ 
how, she bu’sted the cache, and got the gold.— 
There’s the land left,—you can have it,—but 
I’ve not got five thousand in cash to my name.” 

He closed his eyes again, half fainting, and 
Mary Martha looked reproachfully at Steve. 

“How could you?” she whispered. 

Mary Martha’s only thought now was for the 
exhausted, miserable old man. She quickly loosed 
the collar of his shirt, sent Steve hurrying for ice 
and cold water, and set to bathing his forehead. 

It was several minutes later when he opened 
his eyes, and his blue stiff lips parted feebly. On 
opposite sides of the bed, Mary Martha and Steve 
were tenderly chafing his wrists. His glance wan¬ 
dered from one to the other and again his eyes 
closed. 


293 


MERRY O 


“I can tell where I was that night,’’ Mary 
Martha said gently. “And I can prove every¬ 
thing I say. I will do this,—but not now.—Poor 
Uncle Bob’s had all he can stand for a little. I 
knew nothing of the cache in the shack, or about 
the bag of money.—Oh, don’t talk now.” 

After a short while, Uncle Bob revived some¬ 
what but continued weak and inert. At four 
o’clock, Mary Martha sent Steve down-stairs to 
get him something hot and stimulating to drink, 
while she stood at the window looking out, wait¬ 
ing for his return, wondering. 

The cache in the rock had been most ingen¬ 
iously conceived and executed. Who had discov¬ 
ered it, and by what means? 

She saw, far down across the bridge, the great 
motor-bus coming up from the city. It stopped, 
sounding its shrill siren to denote the discharge 
of passengers. From that distance, Mary Martha 
could distinguish no one, but observed with vague 
surprise that there were several getting down 
from the bus. She wondered, half humorously, 

294 


THE SECRET OF THE CACHE 


if it could be a further relay of Flesh-and-Bloods 
to “wait for Uncle Bob’s remains.” 

She idly watched the little group, as it crossed 
the bridge and took the road toward the cottage, 
—two girls, a man—drawing nearer and nearer. 
Mary Martha turned pale and clasped her hands 
together in a new anxiety. She did not believe it, 
she wouldn’t believe it,—and yet the fact revealed 
itself before her bewildered eyes. Coming up 
the narrow road between the pines, happy faces 
set toward the little stone house that sheltered 
Mary Martha, came her father, Vivien and 
Teddy, their steps eager and unhesitant, their 
very air expressive of joyous glad assurance. 

“Go back! Go back!” called Mary Martha, 
forgetting the man on the bed behind her. 

They could not hear, but the movements of 
her hands as she tried to make them understand 
her meaning, attracted their attention. They cried 
out eagerly at sight of her, and hurried the faster 
up the steep path below. 


CHAPTER XX 


WHEN SPIRITS WALK 

M ARY MARTHA turned hurriedly toward 
the door, but was stopped at once in her 
intended flight. 

“Come here,” said the old man sternly, and the 
exhaustion and the faintness seemed to fall from 
him with the need for decisive action. 

“I have to go down. My father has come to 
see me, and my sisters.” 

“That’s good. They can see you here. Any¬ 
how, they won’t get a chance to carry away the 
booty. Come here.” 

Mary Martha was forced to yield, and 
crouched ignominiously in a low chair beside the 
bed, waiting the arrival of her family to witness 
her disgrace. 

Meanwhile, below, it was Vivien who confi- 

296 


WHEN SPIRITS WALK 


dently led the small procession up to the house 
and faced Steve and the bewildered group of 
flesh and blood relations. It was to the former 
that she, with jaunty effrontery, addressed her¬ 
self. 

“Oh, hello, Mr. Steve. Wasn’t it a good joke 
I played on you all about the gipsy? This is my 
father, Mr. McAllister, the Reverend Mr. McAl¬ 
lister, and my sister, Teddy, Mr. -. Oh, 

I don’t believe— Why, I don’t think I ever 
heard any name for you but Mr. Steve,” she said, 
laughing gaily. 

“My name is Holloway.—Did you say, McAl¬ 
lister?” 

“Yes, McAllister, the same as Merry O.—Oh, 
hasn’t she told you yet?—I am her sister, and 
father is her father, too, of course, and Teddy is 
her sister the same as mine. We’re all McAl¬ 
listers.” 

“You—you mean—you are—Miss McAllister’s 
—father, and—sisters? Her own family? You 
are!” 


297 



MERRY O 


He caught Mr. McAllister’s hand, and wrung 
it fervently, beaming at him and at the girls. 

“You are! Well, well. You just got here in 
time—for the—for everything! Why, how do 
you do! I’m certainly glad to meet you.—Mc¬ 
Allister, yes, yes.—How do you do?” 

The astonished McAllisters were overwhelmed 
with his surprising exuberance. Mary Martha 
had described him as a very quiet, self-contained, 
reserved young fellow. There was certainly noth¬ 
ing quiet or reserved in the reception they re¬ 
ceived. He only stopped shaking hands with 
their father to greet the girls and promptly shook 
hands with their father again. 

“We came to get Merry O,” said Vivien, al¬ 
most out of breath with the hand-shaking and the 
warmth of the greetings. “We don’t want her 
to work any more. Will you call her?” 

Steve seated them with feverish solicitude for 
their comfort before he went up to summon 
Merry O. His effervescence was quickly quenched 
in his uncle’s presence. 


298 



WHEN SPIRITS WALK 


“Fetch ’em up, fetch ’em up,” was all the old 
man had to say in reply to his request for Mary 
Martha. 

There being nothing else to do, Steve went 
down reluctantly, abashed and apologetic, and 
said nervously: 

“A very— I am sorry to say— There has 
been— As a matter of fact, your daughter has 
had a slight misunderstanding with my—er 
uncle, and he—is a very sick man indeed,—and 
he—will not permit her to leave his room. Will 
you—er—come up? And be—be kind,—be gen¬ 
erous—don’t be surprised at anything. Remem¬ 
ber he is very old and sick.” 

Steve led the way up-stairs, followed by the 
unfortunate Flesh-and-Bloods who fondly hoped 
to be overlooked in the general entrance of such a 
number of visitors. But they were doomed to 
disappointment, for at the door of the room of 
mystery they were dismissed by Uncle Bob with 
just one glaring order from one gray eye. 

Mary Martha hastened to throw her arms 

299 


MERRY O 


about her father’s neck, half laughing, half cry¬ 
ing as she clung to him, while Teddy and Vivien, 
with girlish interest turned first of all to look at 
the figure of the gaunt old man upon the bed, of 
whom they had heard so many astounding things. 

Teddy flushed crimson, paled and clutched sud¬ 
denly at Mary Martha’s hand. 

“L—1—look,” she stammered. “It’s the g— 
g—g—ghost!” 

As they turned in consternation at her exclama¬ 
tion, Vivien nodded affirmation, backing away 
from the bed while her eyes grew wide and dark. 
“The very g—g—ghost,” she repeated, “who 
showed us the f—f—fortune, which was very—” 

“Showed you the—what?” 

But the old man sat up quickly, with the curt 
precision which characterized him in a crisis. 

“Stop right where you are,” he ordered. 
“Wait! Sit down all of you, and talk one at a 
time. Nurse, come here and sit by me. I’ve seen 
those girls before.” 

Mary Martha went at once and sat on the far- 

300 


WHEN SPIRITS WALK 


ther side of the bed as he indicated, while Teddy 
shuddered back on her father’s knee, peering with 
awed and fearful eyes at the gray gaunt face of 
the old man. 

But Vivien had recovered a little of her cour¬ 
age. “Merry O,” she whispered, “is—is that the 
—the old man, Uncle Bob, you told us about,— 
who slides beneath the blankets?” 

Steve laughed aloud, and Uncle Bob looked 
sheepish and as if on the verge of an immediate 
disappearance, when he remembered and retrieved 
himself. 

Mary Martha nodded. 

“Because,” said Vivien, “he’s been fooling you. 
He isn’t a man at all. He’s the gray ghost who 
came to the shack that night and showed us where 
to find the fortune in the rock.” 

Mary Martha sprang to her feet. 

“Vivien, you are crazy—what—” 

Uncle Bob held out a thin gray hand to Vivien. 
“Come here,” he said curtly but not unkindly. 
“Now, do not be afraid, but tell us what you 

301 


MERRY O 


mean. Come here.” She put her hand rather 
timidly in his and was drawn close to his side. 
“The gray ghost who showed you where to find 
the fortune,” he repeated. 

Vivien was puzzled, a little embarrassed at the 
attention centered upon her, but she was no 
longer afraid. 

“You—you are a man, though, aren’t you?” 
she said. “Or are you? Teddy and I both 
thought you were a ghost, and father did too, I 
am sure, though he was ashamed to admit it.” 

“Tell me,” said Uncle Bob. 

“Why, we just went to bed—” 

“No, no, tell me what you were doing in my 
shack.” 

Vivien looked inquiringly at Mary Martha. 
“Did Merry O— Shall I tell him— Is it your 
shack?” 

“Tell him everything, Vivien, the whole story, 
just as it happened,” said Mary Martha. “Go 
right back to New Paris, and bring us out from 
Iowa.” 


302 


WHEN SPIRITS WALK 


Before Vivien could speak, Steve crossed 
quickly to where Mary Martha sat. 

“Before you begin,” he said, “I want you all 
to understand one thing. No matter what has 
happened, no matter where she has been, or what 
she has done, I am going to marry—your Merry 
O. Now go on. But keep that thing clear in 
your mind. I am going to marry her to-night.” 

Teddy sat up to look at him, childishly bright 
and eager. 

“Oh, Merry O, did you get him on a string 
with twenty knots?” she demanded. 

Merry O joined the laughter. 

“No,” she admitted, “I just expected the best 
thing in the world, and I got Steve.” 

Her father bent searching, studying eyes upon 
Steve’s honest face, but Vivien was already 
launched upon her story. 

As Mary Martha had directed her, she went 
back to New Paris, to the church first of all, the 
little ramshackle cottage at the edge of town, and 
Mary Martha clerking in the Emporium. Then 

303 


MERRY O 


she recounted the journey west, Mary Martha’s 
blind following where Divine Love seemed to 
lead, her efforts to get work, her failures, her 
humiliations. 

“We got as far as the shingled shack,” she 
said steadily, looking straight into the deep gray 
eyes fastened upon her, “and the car wouldn’t 
work. So we camped beside the road, and Merry 
O came ahead on foot to try to find a mechanic.— 
Is the car still down there, Merry O?—But she 
didn’t come back for hours, and we were awfully 
frightened. But she said Divine Love had given 
her a beautiful job at fifty dollars a week, and 
that is quite a lot of money, you know. So we 
arranged to camp in the shingled shack and wait 
until Mary Martha cured you. We—aren’t really 
very—er—rich, you know, and rather—needed 
the money. That is, we did then. We don’t 
now,” said Vivien joyously. 

“We knew we had a right to be there, because 
there were signs up on the trees saying it was 
part of the national forest reservation, and of 

304 


WHEN SPIRITS WALK 


course we had as much right to visit the govern¬ 
ment as anybody else. So we camped, and every 
day Merry O came to see us, and told us about 
you, and Mr. Steve, and the funny Flesh-and- 
Bloods. And that brings us up to night before 
last.—That wasn’t so funny,” said Vivien re¬ 
flectively, but added, brightening, “Of course it 
turned out well, but it gave us a terrible fright.” 

“Night before last,” encouraged the old man, 
“go on, my dear. It’s night before last I want to 
know about.” 

“Well, we went to bed, Teddy and I in our 
room, and father in his, and all of a sudden we 
heard a noise down-stairs and we thought maybe 
it was a bear or something and went to get father 
to shoot it, and he wasn’t there. Then we heard 
some one walking down there, and saw a light 
through the cracks, so we thought it was father, 
and we went down, and it was a ghost.” Then 
she added apologetically, “That is, we thought 
it was a ghost,—you looked awfully like a ghost, 
you know, —excuse me.—” 

305 


MERRY O 


“Never mind, Vivie,” put in Mary Martha, 
half laughing. “He thought you and Teddy were 
ghosts, too.” 

The old man slid at once under the sheets at 
their banter, to the intense enjoyment of Teddy 
and Vivien, who had longed to see this operation. 
But immediately, in his eagerness to hear the rest 
of this surprising story, the gray eyes returned 
to the pillow. 

“Of course, we were afraid of the ghost,—I 
mean, you ,—I mean, we didn’t know what it was, 
but we were afraid. So we ran up here and called 
Merry O, and she came out and caught us, and 
pretty soon father came up and we all went 
back. 

“But listen! This is the big part of the story, 
so pay attention to it particularly!” said Vivien 
importantly. “When we saw the ghost,—I mean 
you ,—he was walking right straight toward the 
big rock in the cellar room, as if he intended to 
walk right through it, and we thought he did. 
He had one hand stretched out in front like this, 

306 


WHEN SPIRITS WALK 


—I mean, you had. We both noticed it, didn’t 
we, Ted?” 

Teddy mumbled an unintelligible agreement. 

“Well, Merry 0 made us pack up and go to 
town on the stage, because she felt nervous to 
have us in the shack since it was haunted, and 
because some other man was going to dynamite it 
anyhow, and what with being haunted and dyna¬ 
mited besides, it was no place for us to live. So 
we packed up.—But oh, Merry O, listen to this! 
This is what you don’t know, and it is the best 
part of the whole story. We had finished pack¬ 
ing, and were waiting for the stage, and Ted and 
I were down in the cellar room, and I said, just 
in fun, ‘Look, Ted, this is the way the ghost 
went through the rock.’ Just in fun, it was, I 
never thought of anything else. I put out my 
hand and shut my eyes and walked across to the 
big rock,—all in fun, you know,—and the min¬ 
ute I touched it— What do you think?” 

Vivien paused dramatically to let the climax of 
her story gain weight. 


307 


MERRY O 


“Just as I touched it, all of a sudden, a little 
door of the rock shoved right out, and there was 
a hole behind the door, and in it there was—• 
Guess! Oh, Merry O! A great bag of money, 
gold and silver. Oh, thousands and thousands 
of dollars!” 

At this the old man turned suddenly and held 
out a hand to Merry O, and as she slipped hers 
into it warmly, forgivingly, he whispered: 

“You know I said right along you had your 
good points, nurse, I mean, Merry O.” 

Vivien, being urged, came at last to the end 
of her story. “Well, then, of course, we knew 
right away the kind old ghost had come on pur¬ 
pose to reveal the fortune—I mean, you did.—I 
mean, we thought you did. You did, didn’t you? 
—You see, we expected something wonderful to 
happen. Merry O told us to keep expecting it, 
and we did,—and it happened, you see. It’s an 
awfully good system, Merry O. I’m sorry I 
laughed at it, and I’ll learn all the books by heart. 
Well, Merry O had told us we mustn’t stop the 

308 



WHEN SPIRITS WALK 


stage by the bridge to say good-by to her, be¬ 
cause you could see from your window, so we 
had to go on to town without telling her. But 
we just couldn’t bear to let the poor thing stay 
out here, not knowing how everything had turned 
out just as she said, and working and slaving, 
—and so to-day we got right on the stage—what 
do we care for expense ?—and came out after her. 
Of course, we’re very rich now, and she mustn’t 
work for a living.” 

Steve took Mary Martha’s hand and pulled her 
to her feet. Then she was in his arms, and the 
face she lifted for his kiss was wet with happy 


tears. 


CHAPTER XXI 


IF YOU WILL BE ORTHODOX 

T HE real history of the fortune of the stone 
cache was at first heart-breakingly sad to 
Vivien and Teddy, but after a time Uncle Bob 
succeeded in driving away their regrets by the 
extravagant plans he made for a fusion of all 
their futures and fortunes. 

“First thing is to get rid of the Flesh-and- 
Bloods,” he said. “My Flesh-and-Bloods, I 
mean. Merry O’s don’t seem so bad, one way 
and another.—But now that my boy Steve, and 
my nurse Merry O, and, of course, myself, are 
going to celebrate our honeymoon, with all of 
you McAllisters as guests of honor, there won’t 
be any room for any outside Flesh-and-Bloods, as 
I see. And then we’ll just spend the summer 
right here, where it’s good and healthy, and 
Merry O’ll have a chance to finish curing me.” 

310 


IF YOU WILL BE ORTHODOX 


He was a little vague as to the future, but so 
thrillingly generous in intent, that the McAllisters 
were well content. 

Mary Martha was particularly happy. Out of 
all the confusion and the contradictions of all 
the books, out of all the incomprehensible mys¬ 
teries and the deep philosophies, her eager feet 
had struck on solid rock. It isn’t the method. 
—it is the faith. And those with their Science, 
those with their Theosophy, those with their 
New Thought, those with their Auto-Suggestion, 
and those, like Mary Martha, with their broad 
blending of everything good within range of their 
understanding, are all struggling on toward 
Truth, each along his different, diverging path¬ 
way. And those who never falter, never doubt, 
must all come out at last into happiness, and 
health, and love. 

“And for those like father,” said Mary Martha 
when she was explaining her depth of understand¬ 
ing to Steve, “those like father, who’ve got the 
habit so they just can’t get over being strictly 

311 


MERRY O 


orthodox—they can scramble along in their own 
way and come out with the rest of us in the end. 
That is, 'if they have faith to be healed/ like 
it says in the Bible. But perhaps you don’t re¬ 
member, Steve; of course you weren’t raised on 
the Bible as I was.” 

And Mary Martha found the proof of all her 
arguments, the justification of all her trusting 
faith and the eternal banishment of every linger¬ 
ing regret for the hardships of the road she had 
traveled, in the sweet ecstasy of Steve’s adoring 
kiss upon her lips. 


THE END 








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